i^kV^ 



* 



.^^ 



\^ 



p 



EARLY NEW EXGLAXD PEOPLE. 

SOME ACCOU>'T OF THE 

ELLIS, PEMBERTON, WILLAED, PEESCOTT, TITCOMB, 

SEWALL, AND LONGFELLOW, AND 

ALLIED FAMILIES. 

By SAKAH ELIZABETH TITCO^^LB. 



8vo. 288 pages . . . $4.00. 



The Allied Families are Ater, Bartlett, Chase, Deax, Dow, Di:>*stek, 

Hope, Kilby, :NrARTi>'E, de las Derxler, Maverick, Mills, 

Mo>*TAGt:E, Pepperell, Poore, Spofford, 

A>'D WATMOUGH. 



** This volume is admirably \rritten, a treasury of genealogical lore indeed. 
Instead of followiug the usual methods of the writers of family history, 3Iiss 
Titcomb has illuminated her pages vith anecdotes and personal incidents, 
and has given life, animation, and interest to the illustrious Puritans of 
New England." — Magazine of American History. 

" 'Early Xew England People ' . . . is a model of what a book of genealogy 
should be — not so formal as entertaining, and witli a plentiful sprmkling of 
anecdotes and personal incidents which serve to lay the antiquarian dust 
which rises in such investigations. . . . The actual genealogical information 
given by ]NIiss Titcomb is very extensive, and makes her book of much service 
to antiquaries." — /''. B. Sanborn, in the Springneld Daily Republican. 

" The names mentioned in the title are a guarantee of the wide-spread 
interest wliich the vohime before us possesses ; but we can add Sir ^Villiam 
Pepperell. Judge Haliburton, Robert Treat Paine, Gen. Return Jonathan 
Meigs, INIargaret Fuller, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Harriet Hosmer, the Evarts 
and Hoar families. Gen. William F. Bartlett, and many others. There is no 
lack of romance, particularly in the case of the EUises."' — The Xation. 

" It is a volume which will be warmly welcomed by that large and increas- 
ing class of readers which delight in personal history and reminiscence." — 
Boston Transcript. 

"While this interesting and faithfully wrought volume has all the sub- 
stantial qualities of our best genealogical works, its departure from the usual 
method in which such books are written . . . adds greatly to its value and 
interest, and makes it instructive to a large circle of reaaei-s." — Christian 
Register. 

" The style of the book is at once dignified and easy, and the arrangement 
avoids confusion." — TAe Chicago Daily Tribune. 

"Avoiding the conventional form adopted by most writers of family his- 
tories, ]Miss Titcomb presents a series of narratives, succinct but readable, 
each independent of the other, and each serving to illuminate the history of 
early Xew England life. The writer has been guided, of course, by personal 
and family reasons in her selection of materials, but it happens that several 
of the families of whom she writes have a more than ordinary importance and 
interest." — Boston Evening Journal. 



CLARKE AND CARRUTH, PUBLISHERS, 

340 WasMngton Street, Boston. 



MIND-CURE 



ON A 



MATERIAL BASIS 



BY 

SARAH ELIZABETH TITCOMB 

AUTHOR OF "EAilLY NEW ENGLAND PEOPLE" 



2:5 ' a/. M^ 



?2.Vt 



BOSTON 
CUPPLES, UPHAM AND COMPANY 

283 WASHINGTON STREET 

1885 



/\^" 



^^l>^ 



y 



Copyright, 1885, 

By SAEAH E. TITC03IB. 



All Rights Reserved. 



TO 

THE MOST UNSELFISH AND DEVOTED OF 
FATHERS, 

THIS BOOK IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED 
BY 

HIS DAUGHTER. 



I 



OOl^TENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Cure of Disease by Concentration of 

Thought . 9 

II. The Theology of the "Christian Scien- 
tists " 84 

III. The Single-substance Theory 110 

TV. Mind in Animals and the Lower Races of 

Men 153 

V. The Origin of the Doctrine of the Immor- 
tal Soul 189 

YI. Bible Proof of the Single-substance 

Theory 225 



Appendix 



MIND-CURE 

ON 

A MATBKIAL BASIS. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE CUKE OF DISEASE BY CONCENTKATION OF 
THOUGHT. 

The writer, having acquired the method of 
curing disease which is practised by the " Chris- 
tian Scientists," or " Metaphysicians," commonly 
called Mind-curers, came to the conclusion that 
the success attending that method is due to Con- 
centration of Thought^ and not to the theology 
underlying the method. 

That disease, even organic, can be cured^ as well 
as caused, by the Mind, or what is termed the 
Imagination, is a well-attested fact. In regard to 
the medical and popular use of the term. Dr. Hack 
Tuke observes, — 

" It signifies, in popular and medical language, 
that a man imagines certain (bodily) phenomena 
to have occurred which have not ; or it is meant 
that certain bodily phenomena which really have 
occurred are due to no other cause than that he 
imagined they would. The signification of the term 

g 



10 THE CUEE OF DISEASE 

contained in the first clause is too often assumed 
to be the whole truth. That of the second clause 
is almost, if not altogether, lost sight of. Because 
effects are produced, and cures performed, by means 
of a mental condition called the Imagination, it 
is constantly assumed that these results are ima- 
ginary; in other words, that they are all fancy. 
This is much to be deplored, and one of the objects 
we have in view is to dispel, as far as possible, so 
mischievous an error. It is generally implied that 
these phenomena are of a merely functional or sub- 
jective character, more or less dependent on the 
state of mind, more especially the Will, and that a 
change of mental condition has been naturally fol- 
lowed by a change in the phenomena, although ap- 
parently physical. Such is the broad definition of 
the Imagination, as it presents itself to the mind 
when employed in reference to medical facts of 
every-day occurrence. This is what the orthodox 
practitioner means, as he complacently smiles, or is 
indignant, when the success of his heterodox rival 
is dinned into his ears, and he asserts that it was 
all the effect of Imagination ; and, in this sense, he 
is understood by his assailant. But the fact re- 
mains, and because it remains, and cannot be really 
explained-away, it must be explained. The essen- 
tial must be separated from the accidental, and 
utilized for therapeutical purposes. It matters 
little to the patient by what name the remedy is 
called, whether ' Imagination,' or some of the many 
' pathies ' of the day. It is emphatically a case in 



BY CONCENTKATION OF THOUGHT. 11 

which ' a rose by any other name will smell as 
sweet.' But to the philosophical practitioner it 
ought to matter a great deal ; it ought to be a ques- 
tion of exceeding interest." ^ 

Dr. Tuke thinks that what really happens when 
one is cured by what is termed the Imagination ^ 
is, that the attention is arrested and forcibly di- 
rected to the part, the prominent idea being the 
firm conviction that the morbid symptoms will pass 
away. He observes, — 

" On analyzing the mental states combined under 
the medical and popular use of the term [Imagin- 
nation], it will be found that the Attention is 
strongly directed to a part of the body with which 
certain phenomena are associated, that the ideas 
most vividly presented to the mind are in direct 
relation to them, and that the force of these ideas 
is intensified by accompanying states of mind al- 
ready referred to — Expectation, Hope, or Faith. 
When a person, on swallowing a bread-pill in the 
belief that it has aperient properties, is purged, it 
is said to be through his Imagination ; the mental 
condition present yielding, on analysis, a definite 
direction of thought to the intestinal canal ; such 
leading idea exciting the same peristaltic action 

1 Illustrations of the Influence of the Mind upon the Body 
in Health and Disease, pp. 18, 19, L. 1872. 

'■^ " The Imagination," says Dr. Tuke, " is the grandest me- 
chanical power that the human intelligence possesses, and one 
which will appear more and more marvellous the longer we con- 
sider it. It is an operation of mind altogether inexplicable, and 
can only be compared with chemical affinity " — vol. cit. p. 21. 



12 THE CUEE OF DISEASE 

as would have been induced by castor oil. The 
force of this current of thought is augmented by 
Expectation " (vol. cit. p. 19). 

In this connection the eminent English physi- 
ologist, Dr. William B. Carpenter, observes : " Of 
the influence of this ' expectancy ' in producing 
remarkable changes in the bodily organism, either 
curative or morbid, the history of Medicine affords 
abundant and varied illustrations " (^Mesmerism 
and Spiritualism^ p. 12, L. 1877). 

According to Dr. Carpenter, Dr. Hack Tuke, Dr. 
Charles Fayette Taylor, Dr. Thomas Laycock, Sir 
William Holland, and others, if a person can be led 
to expect a certain result, that result is sure to 
follow. 

Dr. Carpenter's theory is, that expectation of 
either health or disease may become the dominant 
idea in a person's brain, and so control the person 
both mentally and physically, producing either 
health or disease as the case may be. An idea may 
become the dominant idea in a person's brain, un- 
consciously to the person, as shown in epidemic 
Delusions.^ 

1 Of epidemic Delusions — the Flagellant and Dancing ma- 
nias of the Middle Ages ; the supposed Demoniacal Possession 
in the nunneries of France ; the Mewing and Biting manias in 
the nunneries of Germany; the ecstatic revelations of Catholic 
and Protestant visionaries; the strange performances of the 
Convulsionnaires of St. Medad ; the Tarentism of Southern Italy; 
the Tigretier of Abyssinia; the Leaping Ague of Scotland— Dr. 
Carpenter says " the condition underlying them all is the sub- 
jection of the mind to a dominant idea^^ — vol. cit. p. 3. For 
an account of most of these delusions see Dr. Hecker's account 



BY COKCENTEATION OF THOUGHT. 13 

The cure of disease by concentration of thought 
is probabl}^ effected by the idea of health becoming, 
unconsciously to the sick person, the dominant idea 
in the sick person's mind by transferred thought. 
Thus the mind-curer's mind is concentrated upon 
the idea that the sick person has no disease, and 
this idea, being transferred from the active brain of 
the mind-curer to the passive brain of the sick 
person, it becomes there the dominant idea, and the 
sick person becomes well. 

That the dominant idea in the patient's mind 
becomes an idea of health in consequence of the 
thought of the mind-curer is evident from the fact 
that many mind-curers do not lead their patients 
to " expect a certain result " by talking to them ; 
also from the fact that cures are effected when 
the patient has no knowledge of being treated. 

That thought can be transferred from one brain 
to another, the experiments made by the Society 
for Psychical Kesearch (London) have demon- 
strated. This Society, as is well known, embraces 
some of the most distinguished names in the scien- 
tific and philosophical circles of Great Britain.^ 

of the " Dancing mania," forming part of his treatise " On the 
Epidemics of the Middle Ages," translated for the Sydenham 
Society by Dr. Babington. 

1 The President of the Society is Prof. Henry Sedgwick of 
Trinity College, Cambridge; while among the Vice-Presidents 
may be mentioned Prof. W. F. Barrett, F.R.S.E., of the Eoyal 
College of Science in Dublin; the Bishop of Carlisle; Prof. 
Lord Rayleigh, F.R.S., of Cambridge; and Prof. Balfour Stew- 
art, F.R.S., of the Owens College, Manchester. 



14 THE CURE OF DISEASE 

The first report of the Committee on Thought- 
transferrence 1 given to the Society contains the 
following conclusion : " There does exist a group 
of phenomena to which the word ' thought-reading,' 
or, as we prefer to call it, thought-transferrence, 
may be applied, and which consist in the mental 
perception, by certain individuals at certain times, 
of a word or other object kept vividly before the 
mind of another person or persons, without any 
transmission through the recognized channels of 
sense " (^Mind Reading and Beyond^ p. 69, B. 1885, 
W. A. Hovey). 

In regard to thought-reading Dr. Carpenter re- 
marks : " Every one who admits ' there are more 
things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in 
our philosophy ' will be wise in maintaining a re- 
serve of possibility as to phenomena which are not 
altogether opposed to the laws of physics or physi- 
ology, but rather transcend them. Some of the 
writer's own experiences have led him to suspect 
that a power of intuitively perceiving what is pass- 
ing in the mind of another, which has been desig- 
nated as ' thought-reading,' may, like certain forms 
of sense-perception, be extraordinarily exalted by 
the entire concentration of the attention " (^Mental 
Physiology, p. 633, N. Y. 1874). 

The experiments made by the Society for Psy- 

1 The committee consisted of Edmund Gurney, M.A., late 
Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; F. W. H. Myers, M.A., 
late Fellow of Trinity College; F. Podmore, B.A., and Prof. 
Barrett. 



BY CONCEKTEATION OF THOUGHT. 15 

chical Research have proved that not only thoughts 
and visual impressions — diagrams and the like — 
but tastes and pains may be transferred from one 
mind to another by concentration of thought. 

If concentration of thought can cause pains, 
is it unreasonable to assume that it can cure 
pains ? 

As to the process by which thought is trans- 
ferred from one brain to another, it is impossible 
at present to determine. The Committee on 
Thought-transferrence, just referred to, observe, — 

'' It is quite open to surmise some sort of 
analogy to the familiar phenomena of the trans- 
mission and reception of vibratory energy.^ A 
swinging pendulum suspended from a solid sup- 
port will throw into synchronous vibration another 

1 Prof. Joseph Lovering, of Cambridge, Mass., says : "All 
structures, large or small, simple or complex, have a definite 
rate of vibration, depending on their materials, size, and shape, 
and as fixed as the fundamental note of a musical chord. . . . 
When the bridge at Colbrooke Dale was building, a fiddler came 
along and said to the workmen that he could fiddle their bridge 
down. The builders though this boast a fiddle-de-dee, and 
invited the itinerant fiddler to fiddle away to his heart's content. 
One note after another was struck upon the strings, until one 
was found with which the bridge was in sympathy. When the 
bridge began to shake violently, the incredulous workmen were 
alarmed at the unexpected result, and ordered the fiddler to 
stop." " Tyndall tells us that the Swiss muleteers tie up the 
bells of the mules, for fear that the tinkle should bring an 
avalanche down. The breaking of a drinking-glass by the 
human voice, when its fundamental note is sounded, is a well 
authenticated feat." "The nightingale is said to kill by the 
power of its notes " — Half-hourBecreations in Popular Science, 
Second Series, pp. 401, 402. 



16 THE CUEE OF DISEASE 

pendulum attached to tlie same support, if the pe- 
riod of oscillation of the two be the same ; the 
medium of transmission here being the solid ma- 
terial of the support. One tuning-fork or string 
in unison with another will communicate its im- 
pulses through the medium of the air. Glowing 
particles of a gas, acting through the luminiferous 
ether, can throw into sympathetic vibration cool 
molecules of the same substance at a distance. A 
permanent magnet brought into a room will throw 
any surrounding iron into a condition similar to 
its own ; and here the medium of communication 
is unknown. Similarly, we may conceive, if we 
please, with many modern philosophers, that for 
every thought there is a corresponding motion of 
the particles of the brain, and that this vibration 
of molecules of brain-stuff may be communicated 
to an intervening medium, and so pass under cer- 
tain circumstances from one brain to another, with 
a corresponding simultaneity of impressions. No 
more than in the case of the magnetic phenomena 
is any investigator bound to determine the medium 
before inquiry into the fact of transit " (vol. cit. 
pp. 67, 68). 

Serjeant Cox, President of the Psychological So- 
ciety of Great Britain, tells us that the evidence 
of the phenomena of " thought-reading " ^ is over- 
whelming. He remarks : " No supernatural power 

1 Serjeant Cox considers the term thought-reading to be 
misleading. He says: "The common conception of 'thonght- 
reading ' is that thoughts are things — words printed somehow 



BY COKCENTEATION OE THOUGHT. 17 

need be invoked to explain these phenomena. 
Physiology will assist Psychology to a solution of 
the problem. The brain is the material — that is 
the molecular — organ by which the operations 
called mental are conducted. This brain is con- 
structed of a countless multitude of fibres, so fine 
that many millions of them are contained within 
the compass of a sixpence. These fibres are in- 
struments of infinite and inconceivable delicacy. 
They vibrate to waves of the atmosphere, and re- 
spond to vibrations of other brain fibres that are 
imperceptible to sense. Even the vastly coarser 
strings of a harp take up waves of the atmosphere^ 
that our senses do not perceive, and echo the 
sound made by other harp-strings in motion. But 
the atmosphere is not the only medium for trans- 
mitting motion. 

"upon the mind or brain — which the person having the faculty 
of thought-reading peruses, precisely as he would read a book, 
or that it is a picture positively painted upon one mind and 
actually viewed by the other mind. With such a name and 
such conceptions of the theory, it is not surprising that the fact 
itself should be received with incredulity, as wholly inconsistent 
with what we know of brain structure and mental action. 
Thoughts are not written upon the brain, and if they were so writ- 
ten the eye of another person could not read them there. Even 
the overwhelming evidence of the existence of the phenomena 
has not sufficed to remove the prejudice caused by the unfortunate 
name inflicted upon it. At some risk I prefer to throw aside 
that familiar and misleading name, and to substitute for it one 
that precisely expresses the fact without appearing to affirm the 
source of the fact or the means by which it is produced. I 
therefore adopt the descriptive but not prejudging title of 
Mental Sympathy and Communion " — vol. cit. p. 22. 



18 THE CURE OF DISEASE 

Itself floats in a more pervading fluid which 
physicists have agreed to call " the ether." Any 
person who has witnessed the experiments of Prof. 
Tyndall with sensitive flames, showing how the 
atmosphere in a large room cannot be stirred so 
slightly that the flame will not betray the motion, 
will readily understand how the vibration of the 
finest brain fibre may be communicated to other 
brain fibres. The telephone is a still more start- 
ling illustration of the multitudinous atmospheric 
waves imperceptible to our very obtuse senses,^ 
which can perceive only the smallest fraction of 
the things and motions that surround us. But 
infinitely more delicate must be the waves of the 
ether. They must penetrate the most compact 
substance, solidity being only a human conception, 
not a fact in nature. Brain action is brain motion. 
When any mental act is done, the fibres of the 
brain are set in motion, and of these motions the 
Conscious Self takes cognizance. The psychologi- 
cal conclusion from this physiological fact will be 
at once apparent. An idea of thought in my mind 
is attended with certain molecular movements of 
certain fibres in my brain. The motions of these 
fibres in my brain is communicated by ether waves 

^ ''The singular instrument called the Microplione proves 
the presence about us of innumerable waves of soimd, so slight 
as to be inaudible to us. It reveals to the ear a new world, as 
the microscope has opened a new world to the eye. This reve- 
lation is another proof of the fact that our senses are con- 
structed to perceive only an infinitesimal portion of the sights 
and sounds about us." 



BY CONCENTRATION OF THOUGHT. 19 

to the corresponding fibres m your brain, setting 
up in them a similar motion precisely as the harp 
that is played upon evokes the same tone from the 
strings of the untouched harp. These motions of 
my brain impart to your brain identical impres- 
sions, and consequently we think and feel in uni- 
son, — not, of course, always in concert, but in the 
same direction." 

" These impressions," continues Serjeant Cox," 
" communicated from brain to brain, are not per- 
ceived at all times, because we are constructed to 
be conscious of one impression only at one instant 
of time, and, for the most part, Consciousness is 
engaged in taking cognizance of some other more 
vivid impressions. Moreover, some brains are less 
sensitive than others — have coarser fibres — and 
therefore are more slow to catch the finer impulses. 
Let it be understood that this explanation is pre- 
sented to the reader not as the assertion of a 
proved fact, but merely as a suggestion of the 
manner in which the undoubted phenomena of 
Mental Communion and Sympathy might be accom- 
plished by purely natural means, without attrib- 
uting them to the supernatural, the miraculous, 
or the spiritual " (^Mechanism of Man, vol. 2, pp. 
22-27, L. 1879). 

Mr. W. D. Gunning gives the following case of 
"thought transferrenceT' "An eminent physician 
of Philadelphia, who was making some investiga- 
tions on the ' odyle ' of Reichenbach, told me that 
he went one day to hear a 'trance-medium, an 



20 THE CUEE OF DISEASE 

'inspirational' speaker. The medium was a frail, 
sensitive woman, and one of the most successful 
of her class. The doctor went to try an experi- 
ment. He wrote out a very short lecture, memo- 
rized it, and tore up the manuscript. When he 
entered the hall, the audience had assembled, and 
the medium sat on the platform. He fixed his eye 
on her, and, by a strong effort of will, caused her 
to rise and walk forward to the desk. Then he 
thought over his lecture, keeping his will on her, 
and she delivered it, word for word, as the words 
rose up in his mind.^ The woman intended no de- 
ception. She knew that she was not speaking her 
own thoughts, and, very naturally, she referred the 
control to a spirit." 

"Now something^^^ says Mr. Gunning, "must 
have passed from the doctor's mind into the brain 
of the medium. There was no speech, no gesture, 
no visible sign, and yet the thoughts matured in 
one brain were passing, by a subtle chemistry, into 
the brain of another." 

Mr. Gunning's conclusion is, that the thoughts 
were carried from the doctor's to the medium's 
brain on waves of nerve-fluid (we will call it 
nerve-fluid, he says), and that the thoughts were 

1 Mr. Gunning says : " The doctor's case does not stand 
alone. When Dr. Bell began the investigation of Spiritualism, 
he was surprised to find the medium echoing back his own 
thoughts. . . . Others have had the same experience , I have 
had it myself." Mr. Gunning tells us that it was only when 
his mind was intently fixed upon the medium, that his thoughts 
were echoed back — vol. cit. p. 14. 



BY CONCENTRATION OF THOUGHT. 21 

uttered from the woman's lips as they were shaped 
in the doctor's brain, because each wave falling 
into her brain produced there the same motions as 
those produced in the brain in which it was gen- 
erated, just as the electric fluid clicks the same 
symbols in the office which receives the despatch 
as in that which sent it. 

Mr. Gunning observes : " The brain takes note, 
not of real objects, but of their representations. 
Al Hassan did a great service when he demon- 
strated that the ray of light does not pass from 
the eye to the object, as all the philosophers had 
taught, but from the object to the eye. We are 
just learning the significance of the Arab's demon- 
stration. Rays of light flowing from an object 
into the eye shake the optic lobes of the brain, 
and we see, not the object, but a representation of 
it. Now, if any other force could affect the optic 
lobes of my brain as light affects them, I would 
see, although in utter darkness ; and if any other 
force could shake the auditory centres as sound 
shakes them, I would hear, although in the silence 
of an Arctic night ; and if, my brain being quies- 
cent, any other mind could induce in it those mo- 
tions which my own thoughts induce, I would act 
and speak the thoughts of that mind as if they 
were my own " (^Is it the Despair of Science ? pp. 
11-13, B. 18T0). 

That Mr. Gunning is right in his conclusion, a 
study of the phenomena designated as Spectral 
Illusions appears to afford proof. " These are 



22 THE CUEE OF DISEASE 

clearly," says Dr. Carpenter, " sensorial states not 
excited by external objects ; and it is also clear 
that they frequently originate in cerebral changes, 
since they represent creations of the mind, and are 
not mere reproductions of past sensations " (^Mental 
Physiology^ p. 113). 

Proof of the correctness of Mr. Gunning's theory 
is also afforded by those so-called subjective^ sen- 
sations "which have their origin," says Dr. Carpen- 
ter, "in local changes that produce impressions 
on the nerves of the parts to which they are re- 
ferred, we have examples in the flashes of light 
which are symptomatic of disease of the retina or 
of the optic nerve ; and in the singing in the ears, 
which, while sometimes due to a disordered condi- 
tion within the ears themselves, appears more fre- 
quently to arise from an affection of the auditory 
nerve in its course by the pulsations of a neighbor- 
ing artery " (vol. cit. p. 156). 

In connection with the fact of transferred 
thought, the question arises as to the manner in 
which transferred thought can produce such a mar- 
vellous result as the cure of disease. The motions 
produced in the brain by transferred thought are 

1 "The designation 'subjective,'" says Dr. Carpenter, "is 
commonly given to all those sensations which arise out of either 
bodily or mental states whose existence is not consequent upon 
any ' objective ' or external change. But strictly speaking, it 
should be limited to the working of the Ego's own mind; since 
those which are produced by physical impressions made on the 
nerves witliin his body, just as truly belong to the Non-ego, as 
do those made by operations from without " — vol. cit. p. 155. 



BY CONCENTRATION OF THOUGHT. 23 

soon superseded by other motions, and one would 
suppose that the effect of the transferred thought 
would end with the cessation of the motions. That 
such is not the case may be inferred from what is 
known of the effects of automatic, unconscious, 
mental activity, termed by Dr. Carpenter, Uncon- 
scious Cerebration.^ 

That the cerebrum may act upon impressions 
transmitted to it, and may elaborate intellectual 
results, such as we might have attained by the in- 
tentional direction of our minds to the subject, 
without any consciousness on our parts, is only the 
psychological expression of a doctrine that origin- 
ated with Leibnitz and has been almost univer- 
sally adopted by metaphysicians in Germany. 

Sir William Hamilton, who alone of British 
psychologists has fully developed the theory of 
Latent States of Mental Activity, or Mental La- 
tency, distinguishes three degrees of the condition. 
The first is to be seen in acquired knowledge. " I 
know a science, or language," he says, " not merely 
when I make a temporary use of it, but inasmuch 
as I can apply it when and how I will. Thus the 
infinitely greater part of our spiritual treasures 

1 *'Few discoveries," says Serjeant Cox, "have been more 
abused and ridiculed by the Metaphysical School of Mental 
Philosophers. None, however, is more completely confirmed 
by examination of mental facts and phenomena. The concep- 
tion of it once clearly formed, every day, almost every hour, of 
our lives, supplies us with proofs of Unconscious Cerebration, 
whether we note the actions of our minds or observe the actions 
of others — vol. cit. p. 21. 



24 THE CUEE OF DISEASE 

lies always beyond the sphere of consciousness, hid 
in the obscure recesses of the mind." 

" The second condition of Latency exists," Sir 
William Hamilton states, " when the mind con- 
tains certain systems of knowledge, or certain 
habits of action, which it is wholly unconscious of 
possessing in its ordinary state, but which are re- 
vealed to consciousness in certain extraordinary 
exaltation of its powers. The evidence on this 
point shows that the mind frequently contains 
whole systems of knowledge, which, although in 
our normal state they have faded into absolute 
oblivion, may, in certain abnormal states, as mad- 
ness, febrile delirium, somnambulism, catalepsy, 
etc., flash out into luminous consciousness, and 
even throw into the shade of unconsciousness those 
other systems by which they had for a long period 
been eclipsed and even extinguished. For example, 
there are cases in which the extinct memory of 
whole languages ^ was suddenly restored, and, what 
is even more remarkable, in which the faculty was 
exhibited of accurately repeating, in known or 
unknown tongues, passages which were never 
within the grasp of conscious memory in the nor- 
mal state." 2 

* Dr. Biicliner says: " It is credibly asserted that in the hos- 
pital of St. Thomas, in London, a man, after recovery from a 
severe injury to the head, spoke in a foreign language. The 
language proved to be his mother-tongue — Welsh — which, how- 
ever he had forgotten during a thirty years' residence in Lon- 
don" — Force and Matter, p. 124. 

2 Sir William Hamilton gives an account of the Comtesse de 



BY CONCEKTEATION OF THOUGHT. 25 

The third class of latent modifications are in- 
cluded in the question stated by Sir William 
Hamilton, " whether, in the ordinary processes of 
mental life, there are mental modifications, i.e., 
mental activities and passivities of which we are 
unconscious, but which manifest their existence by 
effects of which we are conscious." Sir William's 
answer is, " I am not only strongly inclined to the 
affirmative — nay, I do not hesitate to maintain, 
that what we are conscious of is constructed out 
of what we are not conscious of, — that our whole 
knowledge, in fact, is made up of the unknown 
and incognizable " (^Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. 
1, pp. 339-348, L. 1859). 

Serjeant Cox observes : " The mental condition 
to which the appropriate name of Unconscious 
Cerebration has been given may be thus described : 
In certain conditions some of the mental faculties 
work without consciousness by ourselves of their 
action. The brain, or some portion of it, thinks, 

Lavel, who, when asleep, sometimes talked in the Breton lan- 
guage, but did not understand a single syllable of what she had 
uttered in her sleep, upon its being related to her. She was born 
in the province of Brittany, and was nursed in a family where 
nothing but that language was spoken. Sir William Hamilton 
also gives an account of a young woman who could neither read 
nor write, but who, while sick with a nervous fever, talked 
Latin, Greek, and Hebrew with most distinct enunciation. It 
was discovered that when nine years old she had been charitably 
taken by a Protestant pastor, a very learned man and a great 
Hebraist, who was in the habit of walking up and down a pas- 
sage in his house, into which the kitchen door opened, reading 
with a loud voice out of his favorite books, the Greek and Latin 
Fathers, and Rabbinical books, —vol. cit. p. 343. 



26 THE CUBE OF DISEASE 

feels, has ideas, goes through complicated and 
elaborate courses of thought, and even prompts to 
action without consciousness of the operation of 
the individual, who, at the same moment, is con- 
sciously employed in some other mental work. 
Sometimes there is a self-consciousness of the re- 
sults of such action ; sometimes, also, the results 
are cognizable by others, although quite unrecog- 
nized by the actor " (voL cit. p. 11). 

Dr. Carpenter shows that " much of our highest 
mental activity is to be regarded as the expression 
of the automatic action of the cerebrum ; and 
that it may act upon impressions transmitted to it, 
and may elaborate results such as we might have 
obtained by the purpossive direction of our minds 
to the subject, without any consciousness on our 
parts." " Looking," he adds, " at all those auto- 
matic operations by which results are evolved with- 
out any intentional direction of the mind to them, 
in the light of ' reflex ' actions of the cerebrum, 
there is no more difficulty in comprehending that 
such reflex actions may proceed without our knowl- 
edge, so as to evolve intellectual products when 
their results are transmitted to the sensorium, and 
are thus impressed on our consciousness, than 
there is in understanding that impressions may 
evolve muscular movements, through the reflex 
power of the spinal cord without the necessary 
intervention of sensation." ^ " Cerebral changes 
may take place unconsciously, if the sensorium be 

1 Principles of Human Physiology, p. 607, 5tli edit. 1855. 



BY CONCENTEATION OF THOUGHT. 27 

either in a state of absolute torpor, or for a time 
non-receptive as regards those changes, its activ- 
ity being exerted in some other direction, or, to ex- 
press the same fact psychologically, that mental 
changes, of whose results we subsequently become 
convinced, may go on below the plane of conscious- 
ness, either during profound sleep, or while the 
attention is wholly engrossed by some entirely dif- 
ferent train of thought." " The more we exam- 
ine into what may be termed the mechanism of 
thought, the more clear does it become that not 
only an automatic^ but an unconscious action enters 
largely into all its processes." " There is consid- 
erable ground to believe that the best judgments 
are often mentally delivered in difficult cases, by 
the unconscious resolution of the difficulties in the 
way of arriving at a conclusion, when the question 
(after being well considered in the first place) is 
left to settle itself. 

"It has, on several occasions," continues Dr. 
Carpenter (quoting from a lecture delivered by 
himself) " occurred to me to have to form a decis- 
ion as to some important change, either in my own 
plans of life, or in those of members of my family, 
in which were involved a great many of what we 
are accustomed to call pros and cons, . . . And I 
believe that in all such cases where we are not 
pressed for a decision, our best plan is to let the 
question settle itself by Unconscious Cerebration ; 
having first brought before our minds, as fully as 
possible, everything that can be fairly urged on 



28 THE CURE OF DISEASE 

both sides." Dr. Carpenter quotes the following 
account given by Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

"I was told within a week," says Dr. Holmes, "of 
a business man in Boston, who, having an impor- 
tant question under consideration, had given it up 
for the time as too much for him. But he was 
conscious of an action going on in his brain, which 
was so unusual and painful as to excite his appre- 
hensions that he was threatened with palsy or 
something of that sort. After some hours of this 
uneasiness, his perplexity was all at once cleared 
up by the natural solution of his doubts coming 
to him, worked out, as he believed, in that ob- 
scure and troubled interval." Dr. Holmes observes : 
"I question whether persons who think most — 
that is, have most conscious thought pass through 
their minds — necessarily do most mental work. 
' The tree you are sticking in will be growing while 
you are sleeping.' So with every new idea that is 
planted in a real thinker's mind, it will be growing 
when he is least conscious of it. An idea in the 
brain is not a legend carved on a marble slab : it 
is an impression made on a living tissue, which is 
the seat of active nutritive properties. Shall the 
initials I carved in bark increase from year to year 
with the tree ? and shall not my recorded thought 
develop into new forms and relations with my 
growing brain? " {Mental Physiology^ pp. 518-534.) 

In this connection Sir Benjamin Brodie remarks : 
" It seems to me on some occasions ... as if there 
were in the mind a principle of order, which oper- 



^am^ 



BY CONCENTRATION OF THOUGHT. 29 

ates without our being at the time conscious of it. 
It has often happened to me to have been occupied 
by a particular subject of inquiry; to have accu- 
mulated a store of facts connected with it, but to 
have been able to proceed no further. Then, after 
an interval of time, without any addition to my 
stock of knowledge, I have found the obscurity 
and confusion in which the subject was originally 
enveloped to have cleared away; the facts have 
seemed all to settle themselves in their right places, 
and their mental relations to have become appar- 
ent, although I have not been sensible of having 
made any distinct effort for that purpose " (Psy- 
cJiological Inquiries^ vol. I, p. 20). 

In speaking of the fact that it is an every-day 
occurrence to most of us to forget a particular 
word, or a line of poetry, and to remember it some 
minutes or hours later, Frances Power Cobbe re- 
marks : " We try, perhaps anxiously at first, to 
recover it, well aware that it lies somewhere hidden 
in our memory, but unable to seize it . . . delib- 
erately turn away, not intending finally to abandon 
the pursuit, but precisely as if we were possessed 
of an obedient secretary or librarian, whom we 
could order to hunt up a missing document, or turn 
out a word in a dictionary, while we amused our- 
selves with something else. The more this very 
common phenomenon is studied, the more I think 
the observer of his own mental processes will be 
obliged to concede, the research is made absolutely 
without him. He has neither pain nor pleasure, 



30 THE CUBE OE DISEASE 

nor sense of labor in the task, any more than if it 
were performed by another person ; and his con- 
scious Self is all the time suffering, enjoying, or 
laboring on totally different ground " (Darwinism 
in Morals, p. 308, Edinb. 1872). 

The following passage from an early work of 
Abraham Tucker's, presents the most familiar il- 
lustration of the process of Unconscious Cerebra- 
tion : — 

" But, though the mind, by her notice, begins 
the formation of a train [of ideas] , there is some- 
thing in our internal mechanism that strengthens 
and completes the concatenation. It has been gen- 
erally remarked by school-boys, that after having 
labored the whole evening before a repetition, to 
get their lesson by heart, but to very little purpose, 
when they rise in the morning they shall have it 
current at their tongue's end without any further 
trouble. Nor is it unusual with persons of riper 
years, when being asked for a determination, which 
they cannot form without a number of things to 
be previously considered, to desire time to sleep 
upon it ; because, with all their care to digest their 
materials, they cannot do it completely ; but after 
a night's rest, or some recreation, or the mind being 
turned for a while into a different course of think- 
ing, She finds they have ranged themselves anew 
during her absence, and in such manner as exhib- 
it almost at one view all their mutual relations, 
dependencies, and consequences, which shows that 
our organs do not stand idle the moment we cease to 



BY CONCENTKATION OF THOUGHT. 31 

employ tJiem^ hut continue the motions we put them 
into after they have gone out of sight, thereby 
working themselves to a glibness and smoothness, 
and falling into a more regular and orderly posture 
than we could have placed them with all our skill 
and industry " QThe Light of Nature Perused^ vol. 
1, p„ 248, 24th edit. 1805). 

At one of the lectures on the mind-cure, which 
the writer attended, a certain theological idea was 
propounded by the lecturer, which the writer felt 
sure might be refuted by some fact in nature. Upon 
her return from the lecture she meditated upon 
the subject until midnight, but fell asleep without 
having arrived at a solution of the problem. On 
awakening in the morning she found the solution 
of the problem in her mind. She was aware of 
the fact before she was fully conscious of being 
awake. 

On another occasion the writer felt great dis- 
satisfaction in regard to a certain matter, and 
" turned the subject over " in her mind many times, 
but without being able to come to a satisfactory 
conclusion regarding it, so decided to leave the 
matter as it was. At the same time there was a 
point of minor importance that she had been un- 
able to settle, and having had the experience in 
having a point settled by Unconscious Cerebration 
just alluded to, she decided to leave this point to 
be settled in the same manner. She thought of all 
of the facts bearing upon the case just before fall- 
ing asleep, and fully expected that the conclusion 



32 THE CURE OF DISEASE 

would be worked out for her by Unconscious Cere- 
bration during the night. Great was her surprise 
in the morning to find that the subject had been 
entirely ignored, but that the more important sub- 
ject that she had unwillingly decided the day be- 
fore to leave as it was, had been worked out in the 
most satisfactory manner. This fact would appear 
to show that the unconscious mind is able to choose 
between two or more subjects; though it might be 
explained on the ground that the important sub- 
ject was in the writer's mind prior to the less im- 
portant subject, and that the unconscious mind, 
having started with one subject, could not be 
compelled by the conscious will to leave it for an- 
other. 

" Most persons," says Dr. Tuke, " can insure 
waking in the morning by strongly fixing the at- 
tention upon the time desired just before falling 
asleep. This affords an excellent instance of men- 
tal activity without consciousness of the process, 
the person being in fact asleep at the time the latent 
idea comes into operation. This familiar fact in- 
volves an automatic calculation of the lapse of 
time. The Fakir, before passing into his hiber- 
nating trance, determines when he shall awake, 
and strongly impresses upon his mind the day or 
even the hour when he shall revive, and revive he 
accordingly does. The late Sir James Simpson, at 
a meeting of the Edinburgh Medico-Chirurgical 
Society, referred to a striking case witnessed by 
three physicians, in which a person ' beologized ' 



BY CONCENTEATION OF THOUGHT. 33 

was commanded to sleep thirty-five hours, and did 
so, with two short intervals of permitted awaken- 
ing " (vol. cit. pp. 85, 86). 

The following is told of Charlotte Bronte by 
her biographer, Mrs. Gaskell: (a) " She said that 
it was not every day that she could write. Some- 
times weeks or even months elapsed before she 
felt that she had anything to add to that portion 
of her story which was already written. Then, 
some morning she would waken up, and the pro- 
gress of her work lay clear and bright before her 
in distinct vision, its incidents and consequent 
thoughts being at such times more present to her 
mind than her actual life itself" {Life^ p. 234). 

(6) "Whenever she had to describe anything 
which had not fallen within her own experience, 
it was her habit ' to think of it intently many and 
many a night before falling to sleep, wondering 
what it was like, or how it would be ; ' till at length, 
sometimes after the progress of her story had been 
arrested at this one point for weeks, she wakened 
up in the morning with all clear before her, as if 
she had in reality gone through the experience, 
and then could describe it word for word as it had 
happened " (Xz/e, p. 425). 

Dr. Charles F. Taylor gives in the Popular 
Science Monthly (May, 1879, p. 41) the case of a 
young man who had been unsuccessfully treated 
for a case of ununited fracture of the left thigh- 
bone. Two years before, the young man had met 
with an accident, and had broken his thigh-bone 



34 THE CUHE OF DISEASE 

just above the middle. In due course of time the 
fracture united, and the patient got about, and 
walked with perfect facility for one year, when, 
in crossing the street, he fell and broke the same 
bone again, as was supposed, about four inches 
below the seat of the former fracture. Dr. Taylor 
found, upon examination, that there was no unu- 
nited fracture, and, moreover, that the bone had 
not been broken at the second accident, although 
the young man had been treated for such fracture 
for over a year by three eminent physicians, one 
of them being a surgeon with a national reputa- 
tion. Dr. Taylor observes : — 

" The muscles were wasted, soft, and without 
tonicity, and, there being a large outward bending 
in the middle of the bone, with lapping of more 
than two inches, it would roll about when touched, 
like a crooked stick on the floor, and it was almost 
impossible to keep it still long enough to make a 
diagram." " The explanation of the case is ex- 
ceedingly simple : he thought he had fractured his 
femur at the second accident. This impression 
caused him instinctively and quite unconsciously 
to withhold muscular action in that limb — that is, 
he did what he ought to have done if the limb had 
been fractured. It was the completeness of the 
control over the muscles, the utter restraint of all 
muscular action, causing the totally relaxed con- 
dition which was mistaken for a broken bone. Of 
course the trouble was purely mental. But it was 
not a condition of mind of which he was in the 



BY CONCENTRATION OF THOUGHT. 35 

slightest degree conscious. He was not aware of 
the fact that he was restraining the muscles from 
action during this long time ; so effectually re- 
straining them that all spontaneity was destroyed 
by a direct and positive effect of the will. He held 
his limb in a mental vice of such force and per- 
sistency that its nutrition was interfered with, and 
it was wasted to the last degree. And yet he did 
not know it. There was no shamming. His con- 
dition was a great distress to him. ... A mere 
explanation of his condition was not sufficient for 
him to relax his mental hold on the limb. The 
mental impression ^ subordinated his will and the 
ordinary desire. His treatment consisted in pro- 
viding situations which would assist him to let go 
of his leg. I caused him to take certain violent ex- 
ercises with the upper extremities. The intention 
was to make them so violent that his whole attention 
would be required for the upper, and there would 
be none left for the lower extremity. The plan 
succeeded. Within three days he gave up restrain- 
ing the limb — let go of it ; in fact, spontaneity 
was restored, and he began to walk ; began invol- 
untarily, and without being conscious of it, as he 
was not conscious of restraining it at and after the 
second injury. 

In this, as in all such cases, accepting by the pa- 
tient of the opinion that the power exists is not 
sufficient to restore the member to use . . . sim- 

^ An excellent example of what Dr. Carpenter calls the con- 
trol exercised by the dominant idea. 



36 THE CURE OF DISEASE 

ply to know and understand the mental nature of 
the case is not enough to establish control, because 
it is not the intelligence principally which is at 
fault." 1 

In the same article Dr. Taylor gives the case of 
a little girl of three years of age, who saw a very 
lame child on the street one day, and, on returning 
home, was found, to the surprise of her parents, to 
be lame herself. 

A surgeon celebrated as a joint-doctor was con- 
sulted, and pronounced it a case of hip-joint disease. 
The limb, which was very much drawn up, quick- 
ly came down to its natural position, and after 

1 Dr. Taylor remarks: " It will be observed that I have not 
used the word ' imagination ' in connection with the phenomena 
under consideration. I have not used this term, because it does 
not apply to the facts. Imagination is an attribute of the mind, 
an important but wholly distinct mental faculty. But it is not 
the whole mind, neither does it present a special condition of 
the mind. The imagination is often given full play in many of 
these cases, and undoubtedly assists in producing that mental 
state which ultimately ends in mental allotropism. But, how- 
ever conspicuous the imagination may be in such a case, its only 
importance consists in being one of the many factors tending to 
produce a certain definite result, which, when reached, is not 
imagination nor the direct product of the imagination. I speak 
of this because I think a great deal of harm has been done by 
the use of this word. It is employed, generally, as if the use of 
it carried some explanation, and it is understood by the subject 
as casting some imputation. Besides, abnormal mental timbre, 
productive of positive effects on the organism, is quite as apt to 
be manifested in certain wholly unimaginative persons as in 
the imaginative. The most marked cases which have come 
under my observation have been those of persons whose char- 
acteristics have been strong common sense and self-f orgetful- 
ness." 



BY CONCENTEATION OF THOUGHT. 37 

three months of treatment was pronounced cured. 
Upon taking off the bandages, however, the limb 
was again drawn up. The case was pronounced 
by Dr. Taylor to have been from the beginning a 
case of Unconscious Cerebration. When last seen 
by Dr. Taylor the child was fourteen years old, and 
the limb continued to be drawn up although the 
hip-joint was in perfect condition. 

Dr. Taylor gives the particulars of two cases of 
supposed paralysis which proved to have been 
caused by Unconscious Cerebration. He also gives 
several cases of lameness (one of three years' 
standing) which were caused by stiffened muscles, 
the stiffened condition having been caused and 
continued by Unconscious Cerebration (^Bodily 
Conditions as related to Mental States^. 

Allowing that transferred thought becomes the 
dominant idea in the brain to which it is trans- 
ferred, and that it continues to control the brain 
by Unconscious Cerebration, the mystery of the 
cure of disease by transferred thought is entirely 
done away with by the Single-substance Doctrine,^ 
which demonstrates that mind is a property or 
product of matter ; ^ in other words, that mind and 

^ For proof of the Single-substance Doctrine, see Chapters 
3-5 of this volume. 

2 The realization that matter is simply a manifestation of 
"associated force" makes this theory less difficult to accept 
than it otherwise would be. Prof. Walling says : "Some of 
the so-called primary properties of matter, such as impenetra- 
bility, hardness, elasticity, etc., are not real properties of matter 
per se, but the i^henomena upon which the supposition of their 



38 THE CURE OF DISEASE 

body are one^ instead of two separate entities. 
The theory held by many physiologists — that mind 
is an attribute of the body as a whole, instead of 
being located in the brain only — still further sim- 
plifies the subject of mind-cure. 

Dr. Lindsey observes in this connection : " Phy- 
siologists are gradually adopting a more and more 
comprehensive conception of mind, and are coming 
to regard it as a function or attribute not of any 
particular organ or part of the body, but of the 
body as a whole. ^ Long ago the illustrious Mil- 
ton, discoursing of mind and its seat, properly de- 
scribed the human mind as an attribute of man's 
body as a whole. In various forms or words this 
view has been expressed in recent times by Miiller, 
Lewes, Laycock, Bushnan, Bastian, Maudsley, 
Carpenter, and others. According to these authors 
the seat of mind is throughout the body (Miiller) ; 
mind pervades the body (Laycock and Bushnan) ; 
mind comprehends the bodily life (Maudsley) ; 
psychical life has no one special centre (Lewis) ; 
the whole nervous system is the seat or organ of 
mind, the brain being only its chief seat or organ 
(Bastian). The brain, then, is only one organ of 
mind — the organ, it may be said, only of special 
mental functions. . . . 

existence is based are manifestations of associated force and 
consequent motion." — Abstract of a Paper on Atomic Motion. 
^ The notion that the whole soul is in the M'hole body, and 
in every part, was taken up by Augustine, then by Claudius 
Mamertus, and from them passed over to the School-men, with 
whom it was a favorite maxim. 



BY CONCENTRATION OF THOUGHT. 39 

*' We must henceforth regard the true site, seat, 
or organ of the mind as the whole hody ; and this 
is the only sound basis on which the comparative 
psychologist can begin his studies. There would 
be the less difficulty in accepting such a basis were 
it only borne in view that the muscular as well as 
the nervous system, that muscular action, has an 
intimate relation to mental phenomena — to ideas 
as well as feelings. Muscular action is essential 
in certain, if not in all, mental processes, e.g., in 
feeling or emotion. Outward muscular expression 
(e.g., facial) and inward ideas or feelings are insep- 
arably correlated (Maudsley) . 

" Further, certain phenomena generally referred 
in man to mind are exhibited where no brain exists, 
where it never has existed, or where it has been 
removed or destroyed, artificially, or by disease. 
There is no brain proper in the Hymenoptera, cer- 
tain authors think, and yet its equivalent or ana- 
logue executes what in man would be set down as 
intellectual actions (Houzeau). 

" But, in order to understand the nature and va- 
riety of the mental phenomena that are compati- 
ble with the absence of brain in the highest ani- 
mals, there is no more important subject of study 
than the actions of headless and brainless infants 
and animals. The following must here suffice as 
illustrations : — 

" 1. In what is known to physiologists as Goltz's 
croaking experiment (^QuakversucJi) in the frog, 
after the cerebral hemispheres have been removed, 



40 THE CUEE OE DISEASE 

gentle stroking of certain parts of the body, by 
means of tlie finger or any broad smooth surface, 
produces a croak of satisfaction, ' once at each 
stroke, with machine-like regularity ; ' but if the 
animals are ' touched or stroked with a sharp in- 
strument, they do not croak, but execute defensive 
movements. . . . When any nerve-trunk is irri- 
tated they sometimes utter a sound indeed, but it 
is the cry of pain and never the croak of content- 
ment' (Branton).^ 

^ If you put a frog, that has had its cerebral hemispheres 
removed, "in the flat of your hand, it sits there crouched, 
perfectly quiet, and would sit there forever. Then if you in- 
cline your hand, doing it very gently and slowly, so that the 
frog would naturally tend to slip off, you feel the creature's fore- 
paws getting a little slowly on to the edge of your hand, until he 
can just hold himself there, so that he does not fall ; then, if 
you turn your hand, he mounts up with great care and delibera- 
tion, putting one leg in front, and then the other, until he bal- 
ances himself with perfect precision upon the edge of your 
hand ; then, if you turn your hand over, he goes through the 
opposite set of operations until he comes to sit in perfect secur- 
ity upon the back of your hand. The doing of all this requires 
a delicacy of co-ordination, and an adjustment of the muscular 
apparatus of the body, which is only comparable to that of a 
rope-dancer among ourselves ; though in truth a frog is an 
animal very poorly constructed for rope-dancing, and on the 
whole we may give him rather more credit than we should to a 
human dancer. Their movements are performed with the 
utmost steadiness and precision. . . . And what is still more 
wonderful is, that if you put the frog on a table, and put a book 
between him and the light, and give him a little gog behind, 
he will jump — take a long jump, very possibly — but he won't 
jump against the book ; he will jump to the right or to the left, 
but he will get out of the way, showing that, though he is abso- 
lutely impervious to ordinary impressions of light, there is still a 



BY CONCENTRATION OF THOUGHT. 41 

"2. According to Magendie, Longet, Flourens, 
and Schiff, a pigeon with its cerebral hemispheres 
removed, if thrown into the air, flies ; if laid 
prone, gets up ; shuts its e jes in a bright light ; 
preens its ruffled feathers ; follows with its head 
the movements of a candle ; stands on one leg and 
then changes to the other, maintaining its balance 
or equilibrium ; shakes its head and puts it under 
its wing for sleep — in other words, it receives and 
responds to certain kinds of external, as well as 
internal impressions. 

"3. In Ppufliiger's well-known vinegar experi- 
ment on decapitated frogs, if a drop of acetic acid 
be applied to one thigh the animal wipes it off, or 
endeavors to do so, with the opposite foot or leg ; 
the animal, in short, makes experimental efforts 
to expunge the irritant, while its leg also 'makes 
efforts to push away the probe with which its cloaca 
is being irritated' (Carpenter). 

" 4. Suction of the mother's teats by the brain- 
less puppy (Grainger). 

"5. The decapitated salamander swims (Du- 
meril). 

" 6. The brainless rat, if a sharp noise be made, 
bounds away as if alarmed (Vulpian). 

" 7. The anencephalic infant not only moves its 
limbs, but sucks and cries. 

" Similar actions are performed by animals that 

something which passes through the sensory nerve, acts upon 
the machinery of his nervous system, and causes it to adapt 
itself to the proper action" — Address given hy Professor 
Huxley, before the British Association at Belfast, 1874. 



42 THE CUE,E OF DISEASE 

have been not only decapitated, but dismembered 
or cut into sections. Thus the segments of a 
myriapod walk — the capital segment avoiding 
obstacles — in the absence of vision (Houzeau). . . 
By almost common consent of physiologists these 
phenomena, when exhibited in brainless animals, 
are assigned to the category of what are variously 
called reflex, automatic, mechanical excito-motor, 
or sensori-motor actions, which are supposed to 
be independent of or unassociated with, intelli- 
gence, memor}^, reason, sensation, consciousness, 
and will; but it appears to me that this assig- 
nation has been altogether, or at least too much, 
determined by the fact that the brain is ab- 
sent, and that consciousness and volition are sup- 
posed to depend upon the existence of a brain. 
On the contrary, I hold that both consciousness 
and volition, in some form or degree, are exhibited 
not only by animals deprived or destitute of brain, 
but even of a nervous system, as well as by cer- 
tain plants, as I have elsewhere shown. Unless 
we make this concession — adopt this view of the 
comprehensive character of consciousness and will 
— it is obvious that mental philosophers must so 
re-define these terms as to restrict their application 
to animals provided with a brain and spinal cord ; 
and any such re-definition will probably be diffi- 
cult, mischievous, and unscientific " (^Mind in the 
Lower Animals^ vol. n. pp. 3-6). 

Dr. Maudsley asks : " Is the brain the exclusive 
organ of mind ? If it be so, to what category of 



BY CONCENTRATION OF THOUGHT. 43 

functions shall we refer the reflex acts of the spinal 
cord, which take place independently of the brain, 
and which often achieve as definite an end, and 
seem to display as intelligent an aim, as any con- 
scious act of volition ? " After relating the Goltz's 
croaking experiment Dr. Maudsley asks : " What 
are we to say in explanation of movements that 
have such a look of adaptation ? Are they mental, 
or are they only physical ? If they are mental, it 
is plain we must much enlarge and modify our 
conception of mind and of the seat of mind; if 
physical, it is plain that we must subtract from 
mind functions that are essential to its full func- 
tion, and properties that are the very foundation 
of its development in the higher centres. Some 
eminent physiologists now maintain, on the strength 
of these experiments, that the accepted doctrine 
of reflex action is quite untenable, and that the 
spinal cord is really endowed with sensation and 
volition ; and certainly these adapted actions seem 
to give us all the signs of being felt and willed, 
except telling us they are so " {Body and Mind^ 
pp. 15-17). 

Philosopher Fischer, of Basle, says : " That the 
soul is imminent in the whole nervous system is 
proved, as it feels, perceives, and acts in every part 
thereof. I do not feel pain in a central part of my 
brain, but in a particular spot and place " (quoted 
by Dr. Biichner in Force and Matter^ p. 113, L. 
1870). 

Sir William Hamilton remarks : " To localize 



44 THE CUEE OF DISEASE 

mind is to run into contradiction and absurdity. 
,. . . We cannot localize the mind without cloth- 
ing it with the attributes of extension and place ; 
and to make the seat or locality a point only ag- 
gravates the difficulty. We have no right to limit 
it to any part of the organism ; the mind cannot 
be denied to feel at the finger points. . . . There 
is no good ground to suppose that the mind is sit- 
uate solely in the brain, or exclusively in any one 
part of the body. On the contrary, the supposi- 
tion that it is really present wherever we are 
conscious that it acts, — in a word, the Peripatetic 
aphorism, the soul is all in the whole and all in 
every part — is more philosophical, and, conse- 
quently, more probable than any other opinion " 
(^Lectures on Metaphysics^ vol. Ii, pp. 127, 128). 

Dr. Nichols remarks : ■ " Extended experiments 
have been made in freezing the brain of living ani- 
mals, and it has been shown that when, by the use 
of freezing mixtures, the living brain is frozen 
solid, the animal is not destroyed. Its powers may 
be retained in an ice-bound condition for hours, 
with every faculty practically dead; and yet, set 
free from cold, they are revived, and all come back 
again as healthful as ever.^ This is a marvellous 

1 Dr. Hufeland, a distinguished German philosopher and 
physician of the last century, remarks: " Of the extraordinary 
power which heat has to nourish and awaken life, the following 
entirely new and decisive instance deserves to be mentioned : 
On the 2d of August, 1790, a carabinier named Petit threw 
himself, entirely naked, into the Eliine, from a window of the 
military hospital at Strasburg. This circumstance was observed 



BY CONCENTRATION OF THOUGHT. 45 

revealing, and seems to show that the mind is not 
wholly resident in the brain. The freezing of the 
body as a whole results in the prompt separation 
of mind and matter, and if the whole of the mind 
was resident in the brain, freezing the nervous tis- 
sue would cause death. 

" The deduction might be drawn from these ex- 
periments that heat is the source of mind, or, in- 
deed, is mind, inasmuch as, when it is present in 
the brain, its functions are active ; when it is with- 
drawn, they are dormant. This conclusion would 
necessitate the belief that mind is co-related with 
the energies known as heat, electricity, and light, 
and give color to the views of a class of philoso- 
phers who regard mind as a form of energy no more 
exalted than other forces in nature " ( Whence, 
What, Where ? pp. 36-38, B. 1883). 

about three o'clock in the afternoon; and the body remained 
about half an hour in the water before it was drawn out, to all 
appearances perfectly dead. It was placed in a bed thoroughly 
warmed, with the head raised up, the arms stretched out close 
to it on each side, and the legs laid together. No other process 
was employed than the application of warm cloths to the 
stomach and legs. Warm stones, also, wrapped up in cloth, 
were placed in different parts of the bed. In the course of 
seven or eight minutes a small motion was observed in the eye- 
lids. A little while after, the under jaw, which had been fast 
locked to the upper one, became loose ; the patient foamed at 
the mouth, and he was able to swallow a few spoonfuls of wine. 
His pulse now returned, and at the end of an hour he was able 
to speak. Warmth, in cases of apparent death, acts evidently 
with as much power as on the first expansion of life it nour- 
ishes the smallest sparks of the vital principle still remaining, 
fans them and gradually rouses them into a flame" — Art of 
Prolonging Life, pp. 33, 39, B. 1796. 



46 THE CURE OF DISEASE 

By accepting the well-established, well-proven 
theories of physiologists and psychologists — Ex- 
pectant Attention, the Dominant Idea, Thought- 
transferrence. Unconscious Cerebration, the Single- 
substance Doctrine, the Mind in Attribute of the 
Whole Body — the Mind-Cure has a material basis^ 
and is accounted for by Nature's laws, without 
having recourse to supernatural, immaterial, and 
spiritual agencies. 

The following experiments in curing disease 
by concentration of thought were made by the 
writer. 

A Mrs. H., of this city (Boston), sixty-five 
years of age, had suffered from neuralgic head- 
ache since the summer she was nineteen, her ner- 
vous system at that time having received a severe 
shock in consequence of a serious accident that 
happened to her father. She was rarely free from 
a headache, and much of the time suffered ex- 
tremely, the headache frequently becoming what 
is termed a sick headache. Everything had been 
done for her that Materia Medica could do, but 
without avail. 

In treating ^ Mrs. H. the writer simply concen- 

1 The writer has never known a patient to be made worse by 
this form of treatment. The "Christian Scientists," in treat- 
ing, think of the patient as a perfect spirit without a material 
body. It very frequently happens that this form of treatment 
makes a patient worse, and the patient is told that it is due to 
chemicalization (the meeting of truth and error), in the mind 
of the patient. A more simple explanation would be, that in 
thinking of a sick person as being a perfect spirit, without a 



BY CONCENTRATION OF THOUGHT. 47 

trated her mind upon the thoughts (after mentally 
addressing Mrs. H. by her full name).^ You have 
not got neuralgic headache. A shock to your ner- 
vous system could not have caused neuralgic 
headache.2 

The first treatment was given in February, 1884, 
and the treatments were continued for twelve 
days, all but four of them being given at the 
distance of half a mile from the patient. The 
twelfth day Mrs. H. had a headache, and the writer 
gave her a treatment, but told her she should try 
no longer to cure her, as the treatments did not 
appear to be successful. In November following, 
the writer met Mrs. H., who told her that she had 
not had a headache since the day she received 
her last mind-treatment. It is now nearly fifteen 
months since the mind-treatments were given, and 
Mrs. H. has had but two headaches during that 
time, tliose being caused by severe colds. 

A case of chronic rheumatism of two years' 
standing was treated, the patient, who was seventy- 
six years of age, being unable to get from one 

material body, an impossible existence, the "Cliristian Scien- 
tists," by the power of thought, come near to extinguishing the 
vital spark. 

1 This is considered essential. It is also considered essential 
that the mind-curer should, before treating a patient, concen- 
trate the mind upon the thought, '' I cannot take the disease," 
as sympathy or imitation sometimes makes the disease the 
dominant idea in the mind-curer' s brain. 

2 It is considered essential by many mind-curers that the 
cause of a disease should be known, and its power to cause 
disease denied. 



48 THE CUEE OF DISEASE 

room to another without assistance, on account of 
the lameness in one knee. In about a week the 
patient could not only walk without difficulty, but 
could go up three flights of stairs in succession. 

A widow, who was dependent upon her own ex- 
ertions for the support of herself and two children, 
had been an invalid for a number of years, being 
unable to work a great deal of the time.^ The 
mind-treatments in this case were given every day 
(Sundays excepted) for a month, but after the 
first five or six, the patient had perfect health. It 
is nearly a year since the treatments were given, 
and the patient continues to enjoy perfect health. 

In a case of six months' standing which was in 
some respects similar to the preceding, there had 
been excruciating pain the greater part of the 
time, although the patient was under medical 
treatment, and was, a part of the time, in a hos- 
pital. The first mind-treatment relieved the pain 
permanently, and the patient was cured after being 
treated a month. 

In another case of the same disease of ten years' 
standing, the treatments were given for a month, 
and then discontinued, as there was no apparent 
benefit derived from them. A month later the 
writer called upon the patient, who told her that 
she had suffered none from the extreme pain she 
had been subject to, since the day her case was 
given up by the writer. The improvement con- 

1 The particulars of this case will be given upon application 
to the writer. 



BY CONCENTRATION OF THOUGHT. 49 

tinues. In this case the trouble had been rendered 
very much more serious by mistaken local treat- 
ment which the patient had received six months 
prior to the mind-treatments. 

In another case of the same disease of nine 
years' standing, though not nearly so serious as the 
one just mentioned, there was a complete cure in 
a week. In this case the patient had faith in the 
efficacy of the mind-cure. 

A stiff foot, that was not used for nearly two 
years on account of a fracture of the ankle bone, 
was cured by five or six treatments. The patient 
had begun to walk, but did not have full control 
of the foot previous to the mind-treatments. 

A puny, sickly baby of six months, took a 
severe cold and appeared to be suffering from 
asthma (the child's father was subject to asthma). 
There was a violent throbbing in the chest, which 
was very perceptible when the hand was laid upon 
it, and every breath produced a grating sound. 
The child was treated at six o'clock p.m., and 
when visited the next day was found to have re- 
covered entirely. The child has been perfectly 
healthy since. It is nearly a year since the treat- 
ment was given. 

A friend of the writer was subject to frequent 
and severe attacks of sick headache. One Sunday 
morning, about a year ago, the writer met the 
daughter of her friend at church, and upon inquiry 
learned that her friend was ill with one of her 
sick headaches that was just coming on. Although 



50 THE CURE OF DISEASE 

in church, the writer immediately gave her friend 
a treatment, and was told afterwards by her friend 
that her headache did not amount to anything that 
day. She continued to treat her friend for the 
headaches, although at a distance of twenty miles 
from her, for about ten days. There was no re- 
currence of the headaches for eight months, but at 
the end of that time the patient took a severe cold 
and had a headache. 

A little girl of seven years was treated for a 
case of spinal disease of three and a half years' 
standing. After the second treatment there was 
decided improvement in the child's general health, 
and she continues to grow stronger and straighter. 

A gentleman residing on the same street with 
the writer was very ill with Bright's disease. He 
had been delirious for weeks, and all hope of his 
recovery had been abandoned by one of the two 
physicians who attended him. On passing the 
house one day, the writer gave the patient, whom 
she had never seen, a treatment. She found after- 
wards, upon inquiry, that the patient had recovered 
from his delirium almost immediately after the 
treatment was given. She continued to treat the 
patient, unknown to him or his family, for a fort- 
night, when she learned that he was able to be up 
and about the house. Not long after, he went into 
the country for the summer.^ 

A dog suffering from chorea was treated, and 

1 The names of those treated will be given upon application 
to the writer. 



BY CONCENTEATION OF THOUGHT. 51 

although the nature of the disease was not at first 
known (there was violent and constant twitching 
of one leg), the improvement was noticeable from 
the first. The twitching is now hardly percepti- 
ble. 

The writer can induce sleep in herself ^ when 
inclined to be wakeful, by concentrating her mind 
upon the thought that she is going to sleep.^ 

It is very evident that it was not faith that cured 
in the cases just mentioned, as only three of the 
patients had heard of the mind-cure, and two of 
the three had no faith in it. The treatments were 
not requested in any case, but were given volun- 
tarily, so that the fact of receiving the treatments 
was no indication of faith in the receiver. 

1 In treating one's self the same form of treatment is en- 
joined by the mind-curers that is used in treating others. 

2 Dr. Tulie, in commenting upon the influence of Expectation 
and the Dominant Idea upon the vessels of the brain in causing 
sleep and inducing waking from sleep at a certain time, observes : 
" In many persons it is well known, and as Sir John Forbes de- 
monstrates, it is only necessary to expect sleep, and it super- 
venes, while a person impressed with the idea that it will not 
come may be rendered restless for hours " — vol. cit. p. 93. 

Dr. Carpenter says: "It is unquestionable that the super- 
vention of sleep may be promoted by the strong previous 
expectation of it; and this is true, not merely of ordinary, nat- 
ural sleep, but of the states of artificial Reverie and Somnam- 
bulism." **It is related that the Abbe Faria, who acquired 
notoriety through his power of inducing Somnambulism, was 
accustomed merely to place his patient in an arm-chair, and 
then, after telling him to shut his eyes and collect hhnself, to 
pronounce in a strong voice and imperative tone the M'ord 
'dormez,' which was usually successful " — Mental Physiology, 
p. 579. 



52 THE CUEE OF DISEASE 

Doubtless many will think it impossible for them 
to cure disease by concentrating the mind upon the 
thought that the sick person has no disease, as it is 
impossible not to believe in the reality of disease. 

Strange as it may appear, it does not seem to 
be necessary that the mind-curer should believe 
that the patient has no disease, no more than it 
was necessary for Dr. Haygarth and Mr. Smith to 
believe that the false Tractors would cure rheuma- 
tism.^ The thought of the^ mind-curer, that the 
sick person has no disease, is transferred to the 
brain of the sick person, and becomes there the dom- 
inmit idea, without regard apparently, to the belief 
back of the thought. This may be owing to the 
fact that the belief is lying dormant at the time, 
and that thought only produces motions in the 
brain. It appears that what is only imagined in 
the mind-curer's brain becomes a reality in the 
brain to which the thought is transferred. 

It is well known that many mind-curers prefer 
to treat their patients at a distance from them. 
Marvellous cures have been effected when the 
mind-curer was hundreds of miles from the patient. 

In this connection Dr. Carpenter observes: 
" Looking at Nerve-force as a special form of phys- 
ical energy, it may be deemed not altogether in- 
credible that it should exert itself from a distance, 
so as to bring the brain of one person into direct 
dynamical communication with that of another, 

1 See account of '* Perkins' Magnetic Tractors " further on in 
this chapter. 



BY CONCENTRATION OF THOUGHT. 53 

without the intermediation either of verbal lan- 
guage or of movements of expression. A large 
amount of evidence, sifted with the utmost care, 
would be needed to establish even a prohahility of 
such communication. But would any man of sci- 
ence have a right to say that it is impossible ? " 
(^Mental Physiology^ p. 634.) 

Dr. Tuke tells us that " Unzer and John Hunter 
clearly perceived and expressed the mental or psy- 
cho-physical law which lies at the foundation of 
the principal phenomena properly comprised under 
the influence of the Intellect or Thought upon the 
body, including sensation as well as motion, espe- 
cially in regard to Expectation, and what is ordi- 
narily understood as the Imagination." 

" Unzer, in his great work published in 1771, 
points out, under the division of expectation and 
foreseeing, that expectation of the action of a rem- 
edy often causes us to experience its operations 
beforehand." 

" Hunter," says Dr. Tuke, " had his attention 
drawn to the phenomena of Animal Magnetism, 
and in his Lectures on Surgery, 1786-7, explained 
those which he witnessed, on the principle of At- 
tention and Expectation." He says : " I was asked 
to go to be magnetized, but at first refused, because 
the spasm on m.y vital parts was very likely to be 
brought on by a state of mind anxious about any 
event . . . and I feared lest it should be imputed 
to animal magnetism. But considering that, if any 
person was affected by it, it must he by the Imagina- 



54 THE CUEE OF DISEASE 

tion being worlced up hy the attention to the part ex- 
pected to he affected^ and thinking I could counteract 
this, I went, and accordingly when I went I was 
convinced by the apparatus that everything was 
calculated to affect the Imagination. When the 
magnetizer began operations, and informed me that 
I should feel it first at the roots of my nails of that 
hand nearest the apparatus, I fixed my attention 
on my great toe^ where I was wishing to have a fit 
of the gout ; and I am confident that I can fix my 
attention to any part until I have a sensation in that 
part. Whenever I found myself attending to his 
tricks, I fell to work with my great toe, w^orking 
it about, etc., by which means I prevented it hav- 
ing any effect upon me." 

"Although it is nearly a century," says Dr. 
Tuke, " since these sentences were written, they 
really contain the gist of all that has been written 
since on the influence of Expectation and the Im- 
agination " (vol. cit. pp. 3-5). 

" Muller," says Dr. Tuke, " expresses himself as 
decidedly as John Hunter in regard to the influ- 
ence of Expectation. 'It may be stated,' says 
Muller, ' as a general fact, that any state of the 
body, which is conceived to be approaching, and 
which is expected with certain confidence, will be 
very prone to ensue, as the mere result of that 
idea.' He only makes one condition, ' if it do not 
be beyond the bounds of possibility ' " (vol. cit. 
p. 5). 

Dr. Laycock remarks : " Let a person concen- 



BY CONCENTRATION OF THOUGHT. 55 

trate his attention upon the interior of his head 
for a few moments, and he will experience sensa- 
tions analogous to formication. Anyone may pro- 
duce at will a sensation in his finger-ends, by 
directing his attention to it. The effect of fear- 
ful attention on the nervous system has occasion- 
ally proved fatal " {^Nervous Diseases of Women, 
pp. 110, 112, L. 1840). 

Prof. Dubois and M. Bonnet, also dwell expli- 
citly upon the effects of attention in augmenting 
the intensity of ordinary sensations. 

Expectant Attention has been found to be the 
cause of the phenomena attributed by Mesmer to 
Mesmerism. The Commissioners ^ of the French 
Academy of Medicine, in their examination of the 
phenomena of Mesmerism, came to the conclusion 
that there was no evidence of any special agency 
proceeding from the magnetic tub used by Mesmer ; 
for, on blindfolding those who seemed to be most 
susceptible to its influence, all its ordinary effects 
were produced when they were without any con- 
nection with it, but believed that it existed. And 
so, when in a garden of which trees had been mag- 
netized, the patients, either when blindfolded, or 
when ignorant which trees had been magnetized, 
would be thrown into a convulsive fit if they be- 
lieved themselves to be near a magnetized tree, 
but were really at a distance from it ; whilst, con- 

1 It should be borne in mind that the Commissioners were 
among the most eminent savans of their time, such as Bailly, 
Benjamin FrankHn, and Lavoisier. 



56 THE CURE OF DISEASE 

versely, no effect would follow their close proximity 
to one of these trees when they believed themselves 
to be at a distance from any of them. The Com- 
missioners, in their report of their examination of 
the phenomena of Mesmerism, make the following 
statement: — 

"That which we have learnt, or, at least, that 
which has been proved to us in a clear and satis- 
factory manner, by our inquiry into the phenom- 
ena of Mesmerism, is — that man can act upon man^ 
at all times and places almost, by striking his im- 
agination; that signs and gestures the most sim- 
ple ma}^ produce the most powerful effects ; that 
the action of man upon the imagination may be 
reduced to an art, and conducted after a certain 
method when exercised upon patients who have 
faith in the proceedings." " We have seen the im- 
agination, when exalted, become powerful enough 
to make a j)erson lose the faculty of speech in a 
moment." " Upon persons endowed with sensitive 
nerves we have produced convulsions and what 
are called crises. Animal Magnetism alone, em- 
ployed for thirty minutes, has produced no effect, 
and immediately the imagination has produced 
upon the same person, with the same means, under 
circumstances absolutely similar, a very severe 
and well-characterized convulsion." "As to the 
imagination, we know the derangement which a 
vivid and sudden impression has often occasioned 
in the human machinery. The imagination re- 
news or suspends the animal functions; it ani- 



BY CONCENTRATION OF THOUGHT. 57 

mates by hope or freezes by fear ; in a single night 
it turns the hair white ; in a moment it restores 
the use of the limbs or the speech ; it destroys or 
develops the germ of disease; it even causes 
death." ' 

The investigations of the phenomena of Animal 
Magnetism, or Mesmerism, made by Mr. Braid, a 
surgeon of Manchester, England, "throw a flood 
of light " on the influence of the mind upon the 
body, his experiments being a repetition, on an ex- 
tensive scale, of John Hunter's experiments on 
himself. Mr. Braid disclosed the fact that artifi- 
cial somnambulism was not produced by any imag- 
inary magnetism, nor by the will of the operator, 
nor by any force proceeding from him, but that in 
fact, it was a condition self-induced. The passes 
that were supposed to direct a magnetic stream 
(whose very existence was unproved) from the 
operator to the nerves and brain of the patient 
were shown to be nothing more than contrivances 
to concentrate the attention of the patient. 

Mr. Braid induced many of these mesmeric phe- 
nomena by his own method, which, he held, owed 
its success to " an impression made on the nervous 
centres by the physical and psychical condition of 
the patient, irrespective of any agency proceeding 

1 '"The portrait No. 113, in the British Museum, is of 
Thomas Britton, surnamed the musical small-coat-man. A 
ventriloquist, one of the company at a dinner party at which he 
was present, predicted his death that night; and such was the 
impression made, that it actually took place" — Nervous Dis- 
eases of ]Vomen, p. 112, Dr. Laycock. 



68 THE CUEE OF DISEASE 

from, or excited into action by another " (JSyp- 
notism, Yi. 1843, p. 32). 

Mr. Braid tells us that he requested four gentle- 
men, in good health, and from forty to fifty-six 
years of age, to lay their arms on a table with the 
palms of their hands upwards. Each was to look 
at the palm of his hand for a few minutes with 
fixed attention, and watch the result. Entire si- 
lence was enjoined. In about five minutes the 
first, one of the present members of the Royal 
Academy, stated that he felt a sensation of great 
cold in the hand ; another, who is a very talented 
author, said that for some time he thought nothing 
was going to happen, but at last a darting^ pricking 
sensation took place from the palm of the hand, as 
if electric sparks were being drawn from it ; the 
third gentleman, lately mayor of a large borough, 
said that he felt a very uncomfortable sensation 
of heat come over his hand ; the fourth, secretary 
to an important association, had become rigidly 
cataleptic, his arm being firmly fixed to the table 
(Sypnotism^ XX. p. 93). 

Serjeant Cox explains the manner in which 
cures are effected by the hypnotic process — which 
is performed by making passes — as follows: " By 
directing the attention of the patient to the parts 
of the body over which the hand is drawn, this at- 
tention being accompanied, as a necessary conse- 
quence, by a flow of nerve force to that part, thus 
restoring the equilibrium of vitality and sending 
to the diseased part the vital force of which it is 
deficient " (vol. cit. p. 231). 



BY CONCENTEATION OF THOUGHT. 59 

Sir Henry Holland gives the particulars of mes- 
meric experiments made by Mr. Chenevix with 
two young girls. "These experiments induced 
nervous sensations — heat, weight, or inability of 
motion — in any limb to which the attention was 
expressly solicited, by mesmeric means applied, 
and by the questions asked." Dr. Holland found 
that precisely the same sensations could be pro- 
duced " with the show of the same means applied 
(a mere slip of paper placed by the mesmerizer 
upon the limb), but with nothing actually done." 
Dr. Holland says, " I was led at the time, and 
often since, to make the trial on myself, and al- 
ways with sensations more or less resembling those 
described above, when sufficient effort was made 
to localize the attention and keep it fixed on the 
point designed " ( Chapter on Mental Physiology^ 
p. 25). 

In experiments made, says Dr. Carpenter, with 
Baron von Reichenbach's odyle upon sensitive sub- 
jects, they were made " to see, it was averred, flames 
streaming from the poles of magnets, could smell 
odors issuing from them, and could feel sensations 
of warmth or coolness when magnets were drawn 
over any part of the surface of the body ; some of 
them being also similarly affected by crystals, and 
one in particular, by almost any substance lohatever^ 
so that they saw (in the dark) flames issuing from 
nails or hooks in a Avail, or streaming from the finger- 
ends of human beings." Mr. Braid found by his 
experiments "that whatever sensations were pro- 



60 THE CUEE OF DISEASE 

ducible by the agency of magnets, crystals, etc., 
the very same sensations occurred when the ' sub- 
jects ' believed that such agency was being em- 
ployed, although nothing whatever was being 
done ; and further, that the character of the sensa- 
tions experienced by the subjects depended very 
Tnuch on the ideas they had been led to form of 
them, either by their own mental action, or by the 
suggestion of others " {Mental Physiology^ pp. 159, 
166). 

" I had myself," says Dr. Carpenter, " the oppor- 
tunity of witnessing these 'vigilant phenomena' 
(as Mr. Braid termed them, from their being pre- 
sented by individuals not asleep, though in a state 
of abstraction) upon one of Mr. Braid's best ' sub- 
jects,' a gentleman residing in Manchester, well 
known for his high intellectual culture, great gen- 
eral ability, and strict probity. He had such a re- 
markable power of voluntary abstraction, as to be 
able at any time to induce in himself a state akin 
to profound reverie (corresponding to what has 
been since most inappropriately called the ' biologi- 
cal'), in which he became so completely 'pos- 
sessed' by any idea strongly enforced upon him, 
that his whole state of feeling and action was 
dominated by it. Thus it was sufficient for him to 
place his hand upon the table, and fix his attention 
upon it for half a minute, to be entirely unable to 
withdraw it, if assured in a determined tone that 
he could not do so. When his gaze had been 
steadily directed for a short time to the poles of a 



BY CONCENTRATION OF THOUGHT. 61 

magnet, he could be brought to see flames issuing 
from them, of any form or color that Mr. Braid 
chose to name and when desired to place his hand 
upon one of the poles, and to fix his attention for 
a brief period upon it, the peremptory assurance 
that he could not detach it was sufficient to hold it 
there with such tenacity that I saw Mr. Braid drag 
him round by the traction of the magnet which 
he held, in a way that reminded me of George 
Cruikshank's amusing illustration of the German 
fairy story of the Golden Goose. The attraction 
was dissolved by Mr. Braid's loud cheery ' all right, 
man,' which brought the subject back to his nor- 
mal condition as suddenly as the attraction of a 
powerful electro-magnet for a heavy mass of iron 
ceases when the circuit is broken " (^Mesmerism 
and Spiritualism^ pp. 34, 35). 

Dr. Carpenter, in a letter to Sir Benjamin 
Broady, shows how powerfully a dominant idea 
controls the belief, and, through the belief, the 
actions, in the " biologized state." 

The letter is as follows : " All the phenomena of 
the ' biologized state ' will be found to consist in 
the occupation of the mind by the ideas which 
have been suggested to it, and in the influence 
which those ideas exert upon the actions of the 
body. Thus the operator asserts that the subject 
cannot rise from his chair, or open his eyes, or con- 
tinue to hold a stick ; and the subject thereby be- 
comes so completely possessed with the impossi- 
bility of the act, that he is incapacitated from ex- 



62 THE CTJEE OF DISEASE 

ercising it, not because his will is controlled by 
that of another, but because his will is in abeyance, 
and his muscles are entirely under the guidance of 
his ideas. So again, when he is made to drink a 
glass of water and is assured that it is coffee, or 
wine, or milk, the assurance, delivered in a decided 
tone, makes a stronger impression on his mind than 
that which he receives through his taste, smell, or 
sight ; and, not being able to judge and compare, 
he yields himself up to the dominant idea. The 
same with what has been designated as ' control 
over the memory.' The subject is assured he can- 
not remember the most familiar thing, his own 
name, for example ; and he is prevented from 
doing so, not by the will of the operator, but by 
the conviction of the impossibility of the mental 
act, which engrosses his own mind, and by the 
want of that voluntary control over the direction 
of his thoughts which alone can enable him to 
recall the desiderated impression. The same with 
the abolition of the sense of personal identity. 
Now, almost every one of these peculiar phe- 
nomena has its parallel in states of mind whose 
existence is universally admitted. Thus, the com- 
plete subjection of the muscular power 'to the 
dominant idea ' is precisely what is experienced in 
nightmare ; in which we are prevented from mov- 
ing so much as a finger, notwithstanding a strong 
desire to do so, by the conviction that the least 
movement is impossible. The misinterpretation 
of sensory impressions is continually seen in per- 



BY CONCENTRATION OF THOUGHT. 63 

sons who are subject to absence of mind, who 
make the most absurd mistakes as to what they 
see or hear, taste or feel, in consequence of the 
pre-occupation of the mind by some train of 
thought which renders them unable rightly to 
appreciate the objects around them. In such per- 
sons, too, the memory of the most familiar thing — 
as the absent man's own name for example, or that 
of his most intimate friend — is often in abeyance 
for a time ; and it requires but a more complete 
obliteration of the consciousness of ^ the past, 
through the entire possession of the mind by the 
intense consciousness of the present, to destroy 
the sense of personal identity. This, indeed, we 
often do in effect lose in ordinary dreaming and 
reverie. The essential characteristic of both these 
states, as of the ' biological ' condition, is, the sus- 
pension of voluntary control over the current of 
thought, so that the ideas follow one another sug- 
gestively; and however strange or incongruous 
their combinations or sequences may appear, we 
are never surprised at them, because we have lost 
the power of referring to our ordinary experience. 
. . . Thus, however strange the phenomena of the 
' biological ' ^ state may at first sight appear, tliere 
is not one of them which, when closely scrutinized, 
is not found to be essentially conformable to facts 

1 It is said that Dr. P. P. Quimby, to whom is due the credit 
of the discovery and development of the system of mind-cure 
in modern times, was very successful in producing the "biolo- 
gized state" and possessed wonderful power of concentration of 
mind. 



64 THE CUEE OF DISEASE 

whose genuineness every physiologist and psy- 
chologist is ready to admit" (^Mind and Matter^ 
pp. 89, 90). 

Mr. Braid's definition of hypnotism is, '' A pecul- 
iar condition of the nervous system, induced by a 
fixed and abstracted attention of the mental and 
visual eye." "When we consider," says Mr. 
Braid, " that in this process we have acquired the 
power of raising sensibility to the most extraor- 
dinary degree, and also of depressing it far below 
the torpor of natural sleep; and that from the 
latter condition any or all of the senses may be 
raised to the exalted state of sensibility referred 
to, almost with the rapidity of thought, by so 
simple an agency as a puff of air directed against 
the respective parts ; and that we can also raise 
and depress the force and frequency of the circu- 
lation, locally or generally, in a most extraordi- 
nary degree, — it must he evident we have thus an im- 
portant power to act with [in the cure of disease]. 
Whether these extraordinary physical effects are 
produced through the Imagination chiefly,^ or by 
other means, it appears to me quite certain that 
the Imagination has never been so much under our 
control, or capable of being made to act in the same 
beneficial and uniform manner, by any other mode 
of management hitherto hnown"" (quoted by Dr. 
Tuke in vol. cit. pp. 408, 409). 

By this process Mr. Braid performed marvellous 

1 Mr. Braid did not induce unconsciousness in more than one 
in ten cases. 



BY CONCENTEATION OF THOUGHT. 65 

cures. Dr. Tuke gives tlie particulars of a case 
of partial blindness that was cured by four byp- 
notic operations. The operations were simply the 
direction of the nervous force to the eyes, "by 
wafting over them, and gently touching them 
occasionally, so as to keep up a sustained act of 
attention of the patient's mind to her eyes and the 
function of vision." 

Another case quoted by Dr. Tuke was the re- 
moval of opacity of the cornea, an affection not 
in any degree '' on the nerves " (vol. cit. pp. 410, 
411). 

Mr. Braid was successful in exciting the sense 
of hearing in even the deaf and dumb, in curing 
paralysis, rheumatism, and, indeed, all diseases. 
Dr. Tuke observes of hypnotism, or Braidism, as 
he terms it : " Braidism possesses this great advan- 
tage, that, while the Imagination, Faith, or Expec- 
tation of the patient may be beneficially appealed 
to, this is not essential ; the mere concentration of 
the Attention having a remarkable influence, when 
skilfully directed, in exciting the action of some 
parts, and lowering others " (vol. cit. p. 415). 

Judging from the revelations made by the prac- 
tice of the mind-cure, it would have been possible 
for Mr. Braid to have produced the same results 
without any outward direction of the nerve-force 
to the parts affected. 

In regard to the power of the Imagination, Dr. 
Tuke observes : '' Lord Bacon, with his wonderful 
range of vision, both physical and metaphysical, 



66 THE CURE OF DISEASE 

did not omit to hint at ' the inquiry how to raise 
and fortify the Imagination ; for,' he adds, ' if the 
Imagination fortified have power, then it is material 
to know how to fortify and exalt it^ (xiv. 1, p. 127). 
He enters a protest against charms, characters, and 
ceremonies, but observes that, in regard to ' the 
operations of the conceits and passions of the 
Mind upon the Body, we see all wise physicians, 
in the prescriptions of their regimens to their pa- 
tients, do ever consider accidentia animisiS of great 
force to farther or hinder remedies, or recoveries/ 
He says ' It is an inquiry of great depth and worth 
concei'ning Imagination, how, and how far it alter- 
eth the body proper of the imaginant.' It does 
not follow, indeed, that, because 'it hath a mani- 
fest power to hurt, it has the same degree of power 
to help. But the inquisition of this part is of 
great use, though it needeth, as Socrates said, ' a 
Delian diver,' being difficult and profound.'" Dr. 
Tuke adds, " If for the word Imagination we sub- 
stitute Mental States, may we not say that Mr. 
Braid has proved himself the Delian diver who 
Bacon hoped would arise ? " (vol. cit. pp. 415, 
416.) 

Lord Bacon, in assuming that because the Im- 
agination has power to hurt, it does not follow 
that it has power to help, ignores the fact that the 
French Commissions already referred to as pro- 
ducing convulsions by the Imagination, could also 
terminate them by the same talisman. Their 
words are : " To prove incontestably, and to com- 



BY CONCENTRATION OF THOUGHT. 67 

plete the picture of tlie effects of the Imagination, 
powerful alike to agitate and to calm, we have 
put an end to a convulsion by the same charm 
which produced it, the power of the Imagination." 

Madam de St. Amour attained great reputation 
in France, within the last half -century, for the 
power she exercised over nervous diseases. It 
is related that on one occasion a young woman 
was brought to her, when she demanded, " What 
is your complaint ? " " Epilepsy," replied the girl. 
" Then, in the name of the Lord, have a fit now ! " 
exclaimed Madam de St. Amour. The effect was 
instantaneous. The patient fell backwards, and 
had a violent attack of epileptic convulsions. 
'''' Levez-vous^^'' said Madam de St. Amour, '•' vous 
etes guerie^^^ and the fit subsided (quoted by Dr. 
Tuke in vol. cit. pp. Qb^ 360). 

In 1799, Perkins' metallic tractors, which were 
said to exert the " galvanic agency," had ob- 
tained a high reputation at Bath as a cure for 
rheumatism. Dr. John Haygarth, an eminent 
physician of Bath, in order to ascertain if there 
was any merit in the metallic tractors, advised 
the use of false tractors in the General Hospital at 
Bath. Five cases of chronic rheumatism were 
selected for the experiment, which was tried by 
Dr. Falconer in the presence of Dr. Haygarth, 
Mr. Nichols, surgeon of the Hospital, and Mr. Par- 
nell, apothecary of the Hospital. The false tractors, 
which were simply wooden pegs, "were drawn 
over the skin so as to touch it in the slightest 



68 THE CURE OF DISEASE 

manner." "Four of the patients believed them- 
selves immediately, and three remarkably, re- 
lieved." At Dr. Haygarth's suggestion, the false 
tractors were used by Mr. Richard Smith, a distin- 
guished surgeon of Bristol, in the Bristol Infirm- 
ary, with remarkable success. " Such effects were 
produced as were almost incredible," "being 
greater and more wonderful than what are related 
to have been produced by the patent tractors of 
Perkins." Mr. Smith tells us that he was able to 
give but four or five minutes to a patient instead 
of twenty or thirty minutes, the amount of time 
given by those who used the real tractors, his 
patients crowded in upon him so. Mr. Smith ob- 
serves : " These things were not done in a corner, but 
under the inspection of the faculty of the house, 
and in the presence of the whole ward. ... It was 
often necessary to play the part of a necromancer 
— to describe circles, squares, triangles, and half 
the figures of geometry, upon the part affected, 
with the small ends of the tractors. During all 
this time we conversed upon the discoveries of 
Franklin and Galvine^ laying much stress upon 
the power of metallic points attracting even light- 
ning and conveying it to the earth harmless. To 
a more curious farce I never was witness ; we 
were almost afraid to look each other in the face, 
lest an involuntary smile should remove the mask 
from our coimtenances and dispel the charm." ^ 

1 With regard to these experiments Dr. Tuke says: " It can 
hardly fail to surprise the reader that these observers were con- 



BY CONCENTRATION OF THOUGHT. 69 

Dr. Haygartli says : " If any one should repeat 
these experiments, it should be done with due 
solemnity. During the process, the wonderful 
cures which this remedy is said to have performed 
ought to be particularly related. Without these 
indispensable aids, other trials will not prove as 
successful as those which are above reported. 
The whole success undoubtedly depends upon the 
patient's Imagination " * {Imagination as a Cause 
and as a Cure of Disorders of the Body^ pp. 2-17, 
B. 1800). 

Dr. Haygarth considers " Epidemical Convul- 
sions due to imitation, sympathy, or some other 
affection of the Imagination, which is not gener- 
ally known, nor sufficiently suspected." 

In regard to leading the patient to expect a cer- 
tain result? Dr. Tuke observes : " In the ' Lancet ' 
of December 18, 1869, Dr. John Tanner advocates 
the treatment of hysterical aphonia by electro- 
magnetism, applied to the tongue only, and states 
that in more than fifty cases he had applied it 
without being unsuccessful in any. ... In his 

tent to stop, when they had proved that these instruments were 
as potent as if metallic. They had relieved their patients by 
something, sooner than they would otherwise have been re- 
lieved ; and yet it never seemed to occur to them to continue 
the practice. They called this something ' Imagination,' and 
thought that was quite sufficient to dispose of the whole sub- 
ject " — vol. cit. p. 401. 

1 In several of the cases experimented upon the pain was ren- 
dered far more intense, by the use of the false tractors. 

2 See Dr. C. F. Taylor's account of successful results ob- 
tained by leading the patient to expect the results, in the Pop- 
ular Science Monthly, May, 1879, p. 52. 



70 THE CUEE OF DISEASE 

commentary upon these cases Dr. Tanner remarks, 
* It is all-important, before you apply electro-mag- 
netism, to convince your patient that she will he 
cured ; for, if 3^ou fail in your power of persuasion, 
it is probable the result of its application will not 
be satisfactory.' This almost amounts to a con- 
fession that the application is little worth in 
itself, but that the cure is really effected by power- 
fully affecting the Imagination" (vol. cit. p. 382). 

In writing of agues that have been cured by 
charms which have been used with a thorough 
conviction of their being a sovereign remedy, 
John Hunter remarks : " I am apt to suppose that 
a spider's leg, when taken for an ague, cures in 
the same way ; at least in one case, for on giving 
it without the patient's knowledge it had not the 
slightest effect, but by persuading the patient that 
it was a spider, the effect was produced ; at least 
the disease did not return" (quoted by Dr. Tuke). 

In regard to Expectant Attention, Sir Henry 
Holland remarks: "The sensation, or action, or 
suspension of power of action, may all be pro- 
duced by the excited expectation created at the 
moment of their several effects." " The attention 
by an effort of will concentrated upon the seat of 
the brain, creates certain vague feelings of tension 
and uneasiness, caused possibly by some change in 
the circulation of the part ; though it may be an 
effect, however difficult to conceive, on the ner- 
vous system itself. ^ Persistence in this effort, 

1 Serjeant Cox asks: ''Can the nerve force be directed by 



BY CONCENTEATION OF THOUGHT. 71 

which is seldom indeed possible beyond a short 
time, produces results of much more complex 
nature, and scarcely to be defined by the terms of 
common language." " Stimulated attention, more- 
over, will frequently give a local sense of arterial 
pulsation where not previously felt; and create or 
augment those singing and rushing noises in the 
ears, which probably depend on the circulation 
through the capillary arteries." " A similar con- 
centration of consciousness on the region of the 
stomach, creates in these parts a sense of weight, 
oppression, or other less definite uneasiness ; and 
whenever the stomach is full appears greatly to 
disturb the digestion of the food." "If a limb be 
taken for experiment, a peculiar sense of weight, 
with a vibratory tingling sensation approaching to 
cramp, are produced by the consciousness con- 
centrated upon it. There is reason, indeed, to 
suppose that the muscular structure is actually 
affected in these cases " ( Chapters on Mental Physi- 
ology, pp. 17-37, L. 1852). 

Serjeant Cox remarks : " There is abundance of 
evidence that the Mind has immense power over 
the body, and not only to a certain extent can con- 
trol disease, but even arrest decay. It is a famil- 
iar fact, that a firm belief in an alleged curative 

any voluntary effort ? " His answer is: " There is cogent evi- 
dence that it may. It is an established fact, that by fixing the 
attention upon parts of the structure, positive pains may be pro- 
duced in those parts." " We never send a command to a limb 
but we direct the nerve force thitherto do the work" — vol. cit. 
p. 230. 



72 THE CURE OF DISEASE 

agent will in many cases effect the desired cure, 
especially in diseases resulting from irregular ac- 
tion of the nerve system. . . . The sustaining 
power of Hope has rescued many a patient from 
impending death, and the depression of Despair 
has extinguished many a life that the disease itself 
would have spared. There was profound philos- 
ophy in the living statesman who said 'he had 
not time to be ill.' His mind had no leisure to 
dwell on small ailments and magnify them by 
thinking. But this was not all the good he gained 
by his busy brain. The exercise of the mind was 
in itself a positive benefit. The stimulus to the 
brain was communicated to the nerve centre with 
which it is in such close communion, and the 
consequence was an increased production of vital 
force, which, conveyed by the nerves to all parts 
of the structure, caused every function of every 
organ to be more perfectly performed." " It is a 
fact familiar to the phj^sician that if the attention 
be long fixed upon any organ, its operations are 
thereby disturbed, and actual disease may be pro- 
duced by thinking of it. This cause is clear. By 
directing the attention of the mind to any part of 
our own organism, we, by the very act of attention, 
transmit thither an increased flow of nerve force. 
This would have the effect of setting up a morbid 
sensation, or, if that exists already, the frequent 
repetition of the painful sensations thereby caused 
will give to the affected nerve a tendency to re- 
produce the painful impression on very slight sug- 



BY COKCENTEATION OF THOUGHT. 73 

gestion. This is the explanation of the recurrence 
of neuralgia in its various afflicting forms. The 
remedy is to distract the attention by fixing it 
upon some other object " (vol. cit. ii. p. 154, I. p. 
139). 

Dr. Carpenter observes in this connection : "The 
writer has himself frequently begun a lecture, 
whilst suffering neuralgic pain so severe as to 
make him apprehend that he would find it impos- 
sible to proceed ; yet no sooner has he, by a de- 
termined effort, fairly launched himself into the 
stream of thought, than he has found himself con- 
tinuously borne along without the least distraction, 
until the end has come, and the attention has been 
released ; when the pain has recurred with a force 
that has overmastered all resistance, making him 
wonder how he could have ever ceased to feel it." 

Dr. Carpenter says that "before the intro- 
duction of Chloroform, patients sometimes went 
through severe operations without giving any sign 
of pain, and afterwards declared that they felt 
none ; having concentrated their thoughts, by a 
powerful effort of abstraction, on some subject 
which held them engaged throughout." 

"Some of Robert Hall's most eloquent dis- 
courses," the same author tells us, " were poured 
forth whilst he was suffering under a bodily disor- 
der which caused him to roll in agony on the floor 
when he descended from the pulpit ; yet he was 
entirely unconscious of the irritation of his nerves 
by the calculus which shot forth its jagged points 



74 THE CUEE OF DISEASE 

througli the whole substance of his kidney, so long 
as his soul continiiecl to be ' possessed ' by the 
great subjects on which a powerful effort of his 
Will originally fixed it " (Mental Physiology^ pp. 
138, 139). 

A similar experience in the case of Sir Walter 
Scott is thus recorded by his biographer : " John 
Ballentyne (whom Scott, while suffering under a 
prolonged and painful illness, employed as his 
amanuensis) told me that though Scott often 
turned himself on his pillow with a groan of tor- 
ment, he usually continued the sentence in the 
same breath. But when dialogue of peculiar ani- 
mation was in progress, spirit seemed to triumph 
altogether over matter, — he arose from his couch, 
and walked up and down the room, raising and 
lowering his voice, and as it were acting the parts. 
It was in this fashion that Scott produced the 
greater portion of ' The Bride of Lammermoor,' 
the whole of ' The Legend of Montrose,' and almost 
the whole of ' Ivanhoe' *' (Lockhart's Life of /Scott, 
chap. XLIY.). 

On the other hand, we have an example of ex- 
treme pain produced by the imagination. Dr. 
Carpenter observes : " A butcher was brought into 
the shop of Mr. Macfarlan, the druggist, from the 
market-place opposite, laboring under a terrible 
accident. The man, on trying to hook-up a hea^sy 
piece of meat above his head, slipped, and the 
sharp hook penetrated his arm. On being exam- 
ined, he was pale, almost pulseless, and expressed 



BY CONCENTEATION OF THOUGHT. 75 

himself as suffering acute agony. The arm could 
not be moved without causing excessive pain ; and 
in cutting-off the sleeve he frequently cried out ; 
yet, when the arm was exposed, it was found to be 
quite uninjured, the hook having only traversed 
the sleeve of his coat." 

Dr. Carpenter states that the two following 
cases, " in which local disorder of nutrition fol- 
lowed upon powerful emotion, determined as to 
their seat by the intense direction of the attention 
to a particular part of the body," rest upon excel- 
lent authority. 

" A lady who was watching her little child at 
play, saw a heavy window-sash fall upon its hand, 
cutting off three of the fingers ; and she was so 
much overcome by fright and distress, as to be 
unable to render it any assistance. A surgeon 
was speedily obtained, who, having dressed the 
wounds, turned himself to the mother, whom he 
found seated, moaning, and complaining of pain 
in her hand. On examination, three fingers, cor- 
responding to those injured in the child, were dis- 
covered to be swollen and inflamed, although they 
had ailed nothing prior to the accident. In four- 
and-twenty hours, incisions were made into them, 
and pus was evacuated ; sloughs were afterwards 
discharged, and the wounds ultimately healed." 

" A highly intelligent lady known to Dr. Tuke, 
related to him that one day she was walking past 
a public institution, and observed a child, in 
whom she was particularly interested, coming out 



76 THE CUEE OF DISEASE 

through an iron gate. She saw that he let go the 
gate after opening it, and that it seemed likely to 
close upon him, and concluded that it would do 
so with such force as to crush his ankle ; however, 
that did not happen. 'It was impossible,' she 
says, ' by word or act to be quick enough to meet 
the supposed emergency ; and, in fact, I found I 
could not move, for such intense pain came on in 
the ankle, corresponding to the one that I thought 
the boy would have injured, that I could only put 
my hand on it to lessen its extreme painfulness. 
I am sure I did not move so as to strain or sprain 
it. The walk home — a distance of about a quarter 
of a mile — was very laborious, and in taking off 
my stocking I found a circle round the ankle^ as if 
it had been painted with red currant juice, with a 
large spot of the same on the outer part. By morning 
the whole foot was inflamed, and I was a prisoner 
to my bed many daj-s ' " (vol. cit. pp. 138, 158, 682). 

Sir Benjamin Brodie records th-e case of a young 
lady who had long suffered from hysterical neu- 
ralgia of the hip and thigh, but who immediately 
lost all her symptoms on being thrown from a don- 
key on which she was riding. 

Dr. Tuke observes in this connection: "When 
we see that the mental emotions causea by a fall 
from a donkey cure a disorder of which Dr. Cope- 
land says, there are few less under the control of 
medical treatment, we can scarcely exaggerate the 
importance of attacking Disease psychologically " 
(vol. cit. p. 357). 



BY CONCENTEATION OF THOUGHT. 77 

Dr. Carpenter observes: "It is not a little re- 
markable that the influence of Mental states 
should be unmistakably manifested, not only in 
maladies in which nervous disorder has a large 
share, but also in some — as scurvy and gout — 
which seem to depend upon the existence of a defi- 
nite perversion in the condition of the blood" 
(vol. cit. p. 688). 

The following account, Dr. Lind tells us, " was 
written by an eye-witness, an author of great can- 
dor and veracity,^ who (as he informs us) wrote 
down every day the state of his patients." 

During the famous siege of Breda in 1629, the 
garrison was afflicted with the scurvy in a most 
dreadful degree. "When the Prince of Orange 
heard of their distress, and understood that the 
city was in danger of being given up to the 
enemy by the soldiers, he wrote letters addressed 
to the men, promising them the most speedy relief. 
These were accompanied with medicines against 
the scurvy, said to be of great price, but still of 
greater efficacy : many more were yet to be sent 
them. The effects of this deceit were truly aston- 
ishing ! three small phials of medicine were given 
to each physician, not enough for the recovery of 
two patients. It was publicly given out, that 
three or four drops were sufficient to impart a 
healing virtue to a gallon of liquor. We now 
displayed our wonder-working balsams ; nor were 
even the commanders let into the secret of the 
1 Frederic Yaiider Mye. 



78 THE CUKE OF DISEASE 

cheat put upon the soldiers. They flocked in 
crowds about us, every one soliciting that part 
may be reserved for their use. Cheerfulness again 
appears on every countenance, and a universal 
faith prevails in the sovereign virtues of the reme- 
dies. The herbs now beginning to spring up 
above the ground, we of these make decoctions, to 
which wormwood and camphor were added, that 
by the prevalent flavor of those, they might appear 
medicines of no mean efficac}". The stiff con- 
tracted limbs were anointed with wax melted in 
rapeseed or linseed oil. The invention of new and 
untried phj^sic is boasted ; and amidst a defect of 
every necessary and useful medicine, a large med- 
ley of drugs was compounded. The effect, how- 
ever, of the delusion was really astonishing ; for 
many were quicldy and perfectly recovered. Such 
as had not moved their limbs for a month before, 
were seen walking the streets sound, straight, and 
wliole. . . . Many who declared they had been 
rendered worse by all former remedies adminis- 
tered, recovered in a few days, to their inexpressi- 
ble joy, and the no less general surprise, by their 
taking (almost by their having brought to them) 
what we afiirmed to them to be their gracious 
Prince's cure " (from Dr. Lind's Treatise on the 
Scurvy). 

Dr. Carpenter tells us that " there are numerous 
and well-authenticated cases, in which a severe fit 
of the Gout has been suddenly dissipated by vio- 
lent emotion. Dr. Rush recorded one in wliich 



BY CONCENTEATION OF THOUGHT. 79 

an old farmer, languishing under severe infirmity 
caused by repeated attacks of this disease, was not 
only cured of the particular fit, but was restored 
to perfect health, by the careless driving of one 
of his sons, which caused the window-sash near 
which he was lying to be broken " (vol. cit. p. 



Dr. Tuke gives the particulars of a large num- 
ber of cases of disease that were caused by the 
mind; also of a large number that were cured by 
the mind, among them being two cases of hydro- 
phobia (see vol. cit.). 

There are innumerable instances showing the 
power of concentration of mind that might be 
given. " In Avicenna's treatise, ' De Animali- 
bus,' " says Dr. Robert H. Collyer, " a case is 
reported of a man who had the power of paralyz- 
ing the limbs at pleasure by an effort of volition. 
St. Austin, in his work 'De Civitate Dei,' has 
recorded the case of a priest, Restitutus, who 
could, whenever he chose, throw himself into a 
state of complete insensibility, and be like a dead 
man.i Cardanus relates of himself that he could 
voluntarily place himself in a state of ecstatic in- 
sensibility. It is said that Emanuel Swedenborg 
and Jacob Behmen had this same power of voli- 
tion." Dr. Collyer cites the case of a Col. Town- 
send, of Bristol, who could suspend the heart's 
action so that those who witnessed the phenomenon 

1 The Indian Brahmins and Fakirs teach the mode of indu- 
cing this state. 



80 THE CUEE OF DISEASE 

supposed him to be dead, and then, after having 
lain for a considerable period, could resuscitate 
himself by a voluntary struggle. 

The stigmptta in the case of Louise Lateau, re- 
ported by Dr. Lefevre, of Louvain, Belgium, is 
easily explained, Dr. Collyer says, " by the physi- 
ological power of the brain over the rest of the 
body." Dr. Collj^er thinks it " not astonishing 
that the continued undivided action of the brain, 
when directed to a special part of the bod}", 
should produce the brain impression " (^Mysteries 
of the Vital Element in Connection tvitJi Dreams^ 
Somnambulism^ etc., pp. 68-84, 2d edit. L. 1871). 

Dr. Carpenter, in commenting upon the case of 
Louise Lateau, observes: "As the transudation of 
Blood from the skin through the perspiratory ducts 
(apparently through the rupture of the walls of 
the cutaneous capillaries) under strong Emotional 
excitement is a well-authenticated fact, there is 
nothing in the foregoing narration that the Phys- 
iologists need find any difficulty in accepting." 
"Li all ages, the possession of men's minds by 
'dominant ideas' has been most complete when 
these ideas have been religious aberrations. And 
hence it is only to be expected that the effects of 
such ' possession ' should exert an unusually power- 
ful influence on the Organic functions, as we have 
seen it to do on muscular actions. There is to the 
writer's mind, therefore, nothing either incredible 
or miraculous in the numerous recorded cases of 
' stigmatization ; ' i.e., the appearance of wounds 



BY CONCENTRATION OF THOUGHT. 81 

upon the hands and feet, on the forehead, and on 
the side, — corresponding with those of the cruci- 
fied Jesus, — from which blood has periodically 
flowed. The subjects of these cases were mostly 
'Ecstatics;' i.e., females of strong Emotional 
temperament, who fell into a state of profound 
Reverie, in which their minds were entirely en- 
grossed by the contemplation of their Saviour's 
sufferings, with an intense direction of their sym- 
pathetic attention to his several wounds. And the 
power which this state of Mind would have on the 
local action of the corresponding parts of their 
own bodies gives a definite Physiological rationale 
for what some persons accept for genuine miracles, 
and others repudiate as the tricks of imposture " 
(vol. cit. pp. 688-690). 

Of the singular phenomena of stigmata. Dr. 
Tuke observes: "So far as they are genuine and 
not caused by mechanical irritation, they arise 
from the mind's influence on the capillary circula- 
tion through the vaso-motor nerves. No one has 
treated the subject in a more luminous manner 
than L. Alfred Maury ,i who forcibly observes that 

1 Dr. Tuke remarks: "M. Maury's description of the expe- 
rience of St. Francis d'Assisi, whom he regards as the ancestor 
of the stigmatized, is so much to the purpose tliat we sliall 
make free use of it here. One day, when exliausted by fasts 
and absorbed in reverie and prayer, he imagined that God 
ordered him to open the Gospels in order that he miglit tl\ere 
learn his will. ' Open me the Holy Book,' he exclaimed to a 
friar. Three times was this done, and three times it opened at 
the account of the Saviour's Passion. St. Francis regarded 
this as a proof that he nmst carry his imitation of Christ much 



■1 



82 THE CURE OF DISEASE 

ecstatic mysticism, including these remarkable 
appearances, 'is the most striking proof of the 
influence of the Imagination upon the body, and 
is truly a miracle, in the sense of being one of 
those marvellous effects of the laws of thought 
whose secret escapes and whose extent confounds 
us.' He admits the fact of stigmatization, . . . 
and explains its occurrence, so far at least as the 
reference of the phenomena to a certain group of 
psycho-physical facts may be regarded as an ex- 
planation, by a consideration of the influence of 
dreams upon the skin. In mentioning those cases 
in which persons have dreamed that they received 
blows or wounds, and in the morning have found 

further than he had hitherto done. Bodily mortification he 
had doubtless practised, and had crucified his desires ; but he 
had not yet subjected his body to the sufferings of the cross, 
the penance now evidently required by the Almighty. One 
thought, one definite idea, henceforth occupied him, — his Mas- 
ter's sufferings. His Imagination revelled, so to speak, in all 
his sufferings. He strove, while fasting more and more, and 
praying more and more intensely, to realize them himself. On 
the anniversary of the Exaltation of the Cross, resigning him- 
self more than ever to one of these ecstatic contemplations, he 
imagined he saw an angel descend from the vault of heaven, 
and approach him, the hands and feet attached to a cross. As 
St. Francis contemplated this vision, full of profound delight 
and astonishment, the seraph suddenly vanished. But the pious 
anchorite experienced from this spectacle a strange re-action, 
and his whole system was more than ever permeated with the 
idea of the physical sufferings of Christ in his own person. He 
then suffered pain in his hands and feet, and this was suc- 
ceeded by inflammation so severe as to terminate in ulceration. 
These wounds he regarded as the Stigmata of the Saviour's 
Passion" — vol. cit. pp. 81, 82. 



BY CONCENTRATION OF THOUGHT. 83 

marks of inflammation on the body, and which 
sometimes, in the course of a day or two, become 
ulcers, he observes that ' just so with visionaries, 
under the power of the Imagination, by the con- 
centration of the attention, the blood is directed 
to the place where they fancy they are affected.' 
. . . The periodicity of the Stigmata is a further 
interesting illustration of the influence of Atten- 
tion and Imagination upon the direction and 
localization of the cutaneous circulation. On 
saints' days and on Fridays the seat of the marks 
became more painful, and a brighter color indi- 
cated a fresh afflux of blood to the part, the mys- 
tic's thoughts being especially concentrated upon 
the Passion" (vol. cit. pp. 81-83). 



CHAPTER 11. 

THE THEOLOGY OF THE ''CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS.'' 

The "Christian Scientists," or "Metaphysi- 
cians," with the Idealists, or believers in Bishop 
Berkeley's philosophy,^ deny Physical Causation. 

The " Christian Scientists " assert that the visi- 
ble universe is phenomena with no independent 
reality, being purely a reflection of thought of 
"Infinite Mind" (the term used to designate 
the Creator), possessing as little substance as the 
reflection of a picture thrown by a magic lantern 
upon a white screen. In other words, " if Infinite 
Mind could cease to exist, all the appearances 

1 Bishop Berkeley observes: "It is an opinion strangely pre- 
vailing amongst men, that houses, mountains, rivers, and, in a 
word, all sensible objects, have an existence, natural or real, 
distinct from their being perceived by the understanding. But, 
with how great an assurance and acquiescence soever this 
principle may be entertained in the world, yet whoever shall find 
in his heart to question may, if I mistake not, perceive it in- 
volves a manifest contradiction. For what are the foremen- 
tioned objects but the things we perceive by sense? and is it not 
plainly repugnant that any one of these, or any combination of 
them, should exist unperceived ? " — Berkeley's Principles of 
Knowledge, pp. 195, 196, Phila. 1874. 

84 



THE CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS. 85 

whicli seem so vast and everlasting would vanish 
like a bubble without leaving the shadow of a 
dream heliind^^ ^ just as the picture thrown by the 
magic lantern on the white screen would vanish if 
the light were removed from the lantern. 

They reason thus: The Creator, being -Mind, 
must have thoughts, as it is impossible to conceive 
of a mind without thoughts. Mind and thought 
" being what may be called Heal or Polar Oppo- 
sites,^' ^ " thei/ mutually imply each other.'''' Thought, 
or product of mind, regarded by itself being un- 
picturable, there occurs in connection with thought 
the phenomenon of an accompanying mental pic- 
ture of some kind. " If the thing itself cannot be 
pictured, there will still be an accompanying men- 
tal picture of some manifestation or appearance of 
the thing." ^ Mental pictures, or images, are 
therefore the minds' symbols for objective phe- 
nomena, "the mediation between unpicturable 
thought and a representation to the senses of 
thought." 4 Thus for thought of "Infinite Mind " 
there exists an accompanying mental picture which 
is the reality of the visible universe, the visible 
universe being the reflection of the thought of 

1 Personified UnthinkahleSj p. 15, Sarah Stanley Grimke, 
PI1.B. 

2 " Real or Polar Opposites are necessarily reciprocal. They 
do not exclude, but mutually imply, each other. They are 
utterly meaningless apart. One cannot exist without the other " 
— Personified UnthlnkahleSy p. 12. 

s Ibid., p. 7. 
* Ibid., pp. 8, 9. 



86 THE THEOLOGY OF 

"Infinite Mind." ^ As the reflection of a thought 
has no substance^ the visible universe is simply 
phenomena without substance?' 

There being, in accordance with this theory, no 
substance to matter, or the material part of man, 
pain and disease are not realities, they tell us, but 
simply beliefs ^ of mortal mind. 

On this ground it is claimed that poisonous sub- 
stances would not cause death when taken, if there 
were no belief in the world to that effect. 

It will be observed by the reader that the term 
made use of by the " Christian Scientist " to desig- 
nate the Creator is "Infinite Mind."* It is per- 

1 It is on this ground that " Christian Scientists " assert that 
" All is Mind ; there is no matter." 

2 Another theory advocated is that the visible universe and 
the material part of man are poor counterfeits of the invisible 
and spiritual universe and man. As counterfeits cannot create 
themselves, even were it possible for the invisible and spiritual 
to be seen and comprehended, and as "Christian Scientists" 
believe in but one source of power, this theory has no support. 

^ '* The fundamental erroneous judgment is, that there is any 
such thing in the universe as Physical, Causatioist, a belief in 
which leads both directly and indirectly to disease. Often 
directly in the case of the individual, but more commonly indi- 
rectly as a race-belief held throughout the known history of 
mankind " — Personified Unthinkables. 

* "According to all accounts, the first person who taught 
the doctrine of a God in Greece, properly so called, was Anax- 
agoras, who, coming after Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, 
and others, who had taught the universe to be infinite, and mat- 
ter eternal, though the forms of it were changeable, added 
another princijyle, which he called mind, as that which moved 
and disposed matter." But this philosophy was not his own 
discovery, as it is said that he was taught by the Magi of Egypt 
— Priestley's Disquisitions, p. 322. 



THE CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS. 87 

fectly evident that were any other term used, as 
Lord, God, Jehovah, First Cause, etc., the chain of 
reasoning employed for the purpose of proving 
that the visible universe is simply the reflection of 
the thought of the Creator, would not apply. They 
build a theory solely on the assumption of a title 
which they give to a Being whose substance it is 
impossible for man to know. 

If mind is a property, or product, of matter, as 
the weight of authority demonstrates,^ the Creator 
is, according to the " Christian Scientists," a ma- 
terial Being. We would ask with Zophar, the 
Naamathite, " Canst thou by searching find out 
God? Canst thou find out the Almighty to per- 
fection ? " (Job XI. 7.) We read in the Bible that 
God is a Spirit, but is it possible to know of what 
substance a spirit is ? 

In this connection Dr. Maudsley remarks: "To 
attempt to comprehend, or even to name, the in- 
scrutable is the grossest absurdity ; the incompre- 
hensible must remain ineffable." " Assertions 
made concerning God fail to do more than reflect 
the stages of human culture at which they are 
made " {Body and Will, p. 226, L. 1883). 

Dr. Joseph Priestley observes : " Let us make 
use of what terms we please to express the Divine 
nature, or his mode of existence, we are not able 
to come any nearer to an adequate conception 

* Dr. Morton Prince observes: '' The weight of authority is 
in favor of a material basis for all mental phenomena" — The 
Nature of Mind and Human Automatism, p. 8. 



88 THE THEOLOGY OF 

concerning them. God is and ever must remain 
the incomprehensible^ " All that we can pretend 
to know of God is his infinite wisdom, power, and 
goodness. We see and feel the effects of these 
every moment of our lives ; but it is impossible 
that we should see or feel the substance to which 
these powers belong; and therefore all that we 
can conceive or pronounce concerning it must be 
merely hypothetical " (Disquisitions^ pp. 143, 144, 
L. 1771). 

Mr. Herbert Spencer remarks : " The conscious- 
ness of an Inscrutable Power manifest to us 
through all phenomena has been growing ever 
clearer, and must eventually be freed from its im- 
perfections. The certainty that on the one hand 
such a power exists, while on the other hand its 
nature transcends intuition, and is beyond imagi- 
nation, is the certainty towards which intelligence 
has been from the first progressing " (Principles 
of Philosophy, p. 108, N. Y. 1877). 

In regard to a belief in physical causation. Dr. 
Carpenter observes that common sense gives us a 
much better result than any elaborate discussion. 
He quotes an expression which was quoted, he 
says, by one of the best logicians and metajDhysi- 
cians of our time, Archbishop Manning, who cited 
the words and entirely concurred in them. The 
words are : " In regard to the existence of the 
external world, the common sense of mankind 
is practically worth more than all the arguments 
of all the logicians who have discussed the basis of 



THE CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS. 89 

our belief in it " QHalf-Jiour Recreations in Popular 
Science, First Series, p. 194, B. 1874). 

In regard to Physical Causation, Mr. Herbert 
Spencer remarks : " We cannot think at all about 
tke impressions which the extended world pro- 
duces upon us, without thinking of them as caused." 
" Our belief in objective reality is a belief which 
metaphysical criticism cannot for a moment shake. 
When we are taught that a piece of matter re- 
garded by us as existing externally cannot be 
really known, but that we can know only certain 
impressions produced on us, we are yet by the 
relativity of our thought compelled to think of 
these in relation to a certain cause — the notion 
of a real existence which generated these impres- 
sions becomes nascent. If it be proved to us that 
every notion of a real existence which we can 
frame, is utterly inconsistent with itself — that 
matter, however conceived by us, cannot be mat- 
ter as it actually is, our conception, though trans- 
figured, is not destroyed : there remains the sense 
of reality, dissociated as far as possible from the 
special forms under which it was before repre- 
sented in thought." " It is an awkward fact that 
Idealism cannot state its case without assuming 
Realism by the way. Erase from its argument all 
terms implying the objective reality of things, and 
its argument falls to pieces " (^Principles of Psy- 
chology, pp. 37, 93, 36, L. 1835). 

Mr. Morell remarks : " True it is, we never can 
prove the existence of a material world, but equally 



90 THE THEOLOGY OF 

true it is, that can never prove its non-existence, 
or show that such an idea must necessarily involve 
absurdity. All we can do is to reduce the ques- 
tion to its several hypotheses, and then accept the 
one which gives the fullest and most satisfactory 
account of the phenomena we have to explain. 

" That all men practically do, and must believe 
in some objective reality, presenting the phenom- 
ena of matter, is certain ; to deny this would be 
only to controvert one fundamental idea by argu- 
ments drawn from another; in other words, to 
admit that our intellectual nature is in conflict 
with itself; so that one primitive dictate of our 
consciousness being falsified, there could be no 
shelter from a sweeping scepticism when directed 
against the rest " (^History of Modern Philosophy^ 
p. 143, L. 1851). 

That the Creator has personality, the " Christian 
Scientists " deny. They claim that " Infinite Mind " 
is a pervasive Force or principle of Life. 

If, owing to the limited intelligence of man, it can- 
not be positively affirmed that the Creator has per- 
sonality, it cannot, for the same reason, be denied. 

In this connection a correspondent of the JEdin- 
hurgh Review remarks : " Is the power around us 
not a person ? All existing beings must be either 
persons or things ; and no sophistry can deter us 
from the invincible persuasion which all human 
creatures possess, that persons are superior to 
things." 1 

1 Quoted by Matthew Arnold, in God and the Bible, p. 35. 



THE CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS. 91 

On this point Dr. Mivart observes : " To deny 
personality to First Cause, is to debase it to a lower 
level than ourselves. It has this practical effect, 
because we cannot conceive anything as imper- 
sonal, and yet of a higher nature than our own. 
And, indeed, this circumstance is not owing to 
mere mental impotence, but to a positive and clear 
perception. For to be a person, means to be a 
being possessing knowledge and will; and every 
being which has not these faculties must be infi- 
nitely inferior to one which has them" (^Lessons 
from Nature, p. 361, L. 1876). 

The "Christian Scientists" affirm that the mind 
or spirit^ of man is an idea of "Infinite Mind," and 
possesses a spiritual body, as an idea unexpressed, 
or unclothed, would be a nonentity. 

The doctrine of the emanation of souls from the 
Divine Mind^ which includes the doctrines of the 
pre-existence and immortality of the soul, as well 
as the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, 
originated with the Pagans of the East. The 
Greek philosophers borrowed it from the Pagans, 
and from them it passed to the early Fathers in the 
Christian Church. 

In this connection Dr. Priestley observes: "We 
find nothing said by any Christian writer concern- 
ing the soul before Justin Martyr, who had been 
a Platonic philosopher, and who, using their lan- 
guage, speaks of souls as emanations from the Deity. 

' The words, '^mind" and "spirit" are synonymous with 
them. 



92 THE THEOLOGY OF 

"But as this doctrine of the high descent of the 
soul has not the least countenance in the scrip- 
tures, we soon find that it did not meet with a 
hearty reception among Christians, and that it was 
abandoned by all who were not peculiarly addicted 
to philosophy. Irenaeus expressly denied the 
transmigration of souls; he believed that they 
were immortal only through grace, and maintained 
that those of the wicked shall cease to be, after 
they have been tormented a long time " (vol. cit. 
p. 245). 

It is taught by the "Christian Scientists" that 
the material body of man is not created by " In- 
finite Mind," as "Infinite Mind" is spirit, and in 
accordance with the law, "Like produces like," can 
produce spirit only.^ 

The words of Dr. Maudsley are very appropriate 
in this connection. He says : " The portion of the 
universe with wliich man is brought into con- 
sciousness by his existing sentiency is but a frag- 
ment, and to measure the possibilities of the Infi- 
nite Unknown by the standard of what he knows 
is very much as if the oyster should judge of all 
Nature by the experience gained within its shell" 
(Body and Mind, p. 268, N. Y. 1884). 

The "Christian Scientists" account for the ma- 
terial body of man, on the ground that it is a 
shadow or reflection of the spiritual body.^ 

1 This idea came from Pagan philosophy — See Beaufobre, 
vol. i. pp. 588-590. 

2 Animals are said to be ideas of man, and it is asserted by 
the ''Christian Scientists," that, if man had no evil thoughts, 
there would be no ferocious animals. 



THE CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS. 93 

Allowing that there is a spiritual body, would it 
be possible for an immortal (they claim that it is 
immortal), immaterial, invisible^ spiritual body to 
produce a mortal, material, visible shadow or re- 
flection? If such a seeming impossibility were 
true, it follows that some law of Nature must be 
the cause, and. Nature's laws being unchangeable, 
the spiritual body would forever produce the ma- 
terial body. In that case death and disintegration 
of the material body would be an impossibility. 

The " Christian Scientists " assert that the spirit, 
or mind, of man, is not in the material body, as, 
being an idea of " Infinite Mind," and thus a part 
of " Infinite Mind," it cannot be in the material 
body without a violation of the law, " The greater 
cannot be contained within the less." 

As the problem as to what matter is has not as 
yet been solved,^ it is impossible to say what can 
or cannot be contained in it. If the assertion 
made by the '' Christian Scientists " were true, it 
could not be said that " God is everywhere," as he 
would on the same ground be excluded from this 
world, and, indeed, from all his works. 

The " Christian Scientists " assert that there is 
no sin or error,^ as " Infinite Mind," being perfect, 

1 Dr. Nichols says: "The study of the behavior of matter 
has not resulted in throwing satisfactory light upon the problem 
as to what it is. To the modern experimenter, matter is only 
known by what it does " — Whence, What, Where f p. 53. 

2 The " Christian Scientists " consider this positive proof that 
there is no sickness, as error and sickness are with them 
synonymous words. They say that as sickness is error, and as 



94 THE THEOLOGY OF 

cannot create sin, or error ; and man, being an 
idea of " Infinite Mind," and thus a part of " Infi- 
nite Mind," must be perfect also, as " Infinite 
Mind " can have no ideas that are not perfect. 

That the Creator is perfect we cannot doubt ; 
and man also must be perfect, as the being the 
Creator made him, a being possessing Free Will. 
We read that " God created man in his own like- 
ness and image " (Gen. I. 26, 27), therefore man 
was created a/ree will agent, and, having free will, 
he has the power to disobey God, in other words, 
to sin. 

Here we are met by the assertion that the ac- 
count of the creation of man contained in Genesis 
is a legend. 

In regard to this account,^ Dr. Nichols remarks : 

God could not have created error, sickness does not exist save 
as a belief in mortal mind. When pressed as to what source 
mortal mind derives its intelligence from, they are forced to 
admit that mortal mind does not exist, and is merely a terra. 
This admission is equivalent to an assertion that there is not 
euen a belief in sickness. 

1 Mr. Alger, in commenting upon the fact that many schol- 
ars have thought the account was not of Hebrew origin, but was 
borrowed from the literary traditions of some earlier Oriental 
nation, observes: "The Hebrews may as well have originated 
such ideas as anybody else. The Egyptians, the Phoenicians, 
the Chaldeans, the Persians, the Etruscans, have kindred nar- 
ratives held as most ancient and sacred. The Chinese, the 
Sandwich Islanders, the North American Indians, also have 
their legends of the origin and altered fortunes of the human 
race. The resemblances between many of these stories are 
better accounted for by the intrinsic similarities of the subject, 
of the mind, of nature, and of mental action, than by the sup- 



THE CHEISTIAN SCIENTISTS. 95 

" Whether it be regarded as a legend of very early 
times, a story characteristic of the East, or as a 
supernatural revelation of man's genesis, the stu- 
dent or investigator cannot but view it as extraor- 
dinary. If we are required to accept it after 
ecclesiastic or scholastic interpretations, which 
place the occurrences about six thousand years 
ago, and which insist upon a literal rendering of 
the text, — the way is beset with difficulties. If, on 
the other hand, the narrative be regarded as a dim 
shadowing forth of the outlines of a creative act, 
instituted by divine interference in some early 
epoch of the world's history, it at once commands 
the respect of those who recognize the existence 
of a Supreme Creator in the universe. 

"There is in the narrative certain material evi- 
dence, which, independent of all other considera- 
tions, lends to it a startling significancy. The 
prominent incidents of the transaction so briefly 
presented are wonderfully in accordance with 
possibilities, or, there is evidence of a wise adap- 
tation of means to ends. We are told without 
any show of hesitancy that man was made out of 
the ' dust of the earth ; ' that is, he came from the 
same general mother or source as all organic life. 
If the statement were that he was formed out of 
the rocks or out of the trees of the garden, it 
would be far less significant of his true chemical 
constitution as made known through modern re- 
position of derivation from one another " — Doctrine of a Future 
Life, p. 22, Phila. 1S61. 



96 THE THEOLOGY OF 

search. Rocks and trees are not so constituted as 
to meet fully the necessities of his material organi- 
zation, and the same may be said of quite all the 
substances or prominent objects which were open 
to observation in early times. In the 'dust of the 
earth ' we have an expression which may fairly be 
interpreted to mean the soil of the earth, which 
includes both the organic and inorganic constitu- 
ents found in the physical organization of man. 
In this material we have the lime, potash, soda, 
magnesia, iron, phosphorus, indeed quite all the 
chemical bodies essential to man's organism. In 
the humus of the soil we have the materials 
needed for the formation of living tissues, the 
carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen. The source from 
which man is stated to have been derived is seen 
to have been fully capable of supplying every 
needed element without the interposition of a 
miracle to summon the rarer molecules from afar. 
A human narrator of such a stupendous transac- 
tion would hardly have allowed his excited imagi- 
nation to go no further than common dust for his 
man-material ; he would have selected the clear 
air about him, the chemical nature of which was to 
him a mystery, or he would have interwoven the 
rainbow or the gorgeous hues of the setting sun 
into the noble form of man. 

" After the completion of the physical structure, 
a still more important act remained to be accom- 
plished, — the endowment of life. The narrator 
proceeds to say that ' God breathed ' into the figure 



THE CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS. 97 

of man 'the breath of life.' This Language and 
statement is even more remarkable than that 
relating to the formation of the body. ... If this 
were only an Eastern tale, told by an ancient 
story-teller, he would have given life to his figure 
by agencies far different. . . , Whoever wrote the 
first chapters of the Book of Genesis, it is certain 
he was no ordinary chronicler; he was destitute 
of the gorgeous imagination so common to the 
authors of the legends and tales of the East, and 
was clairvoyant in a high degree " ( Whence, What, 
TFAer^.^pp. 17-21, B. 1883). 

The principal obstacle to a belief in the ac- 
count of the creation of man as given in Genesis, 
is the generally received belief that the creation of 
man was the result of a primary, distinct, and sud- 
den act of creational construction ; such a belief 
being inconsistent ^ with the theory of Evolution, 

1 "Whatever may be thought on the matter, two conclusions 
must be held as Indefeasible — namely, 1. That scientific and 
revealed truth can never contradict each other ; and, 2. That 
men will never cease to inquire into truth, whatever may be 
the fears of the timid, or the obstacles raised by the prejudices 
of speculation, and the selfishness of bigotry and hypocrisy. 
Man is created to know God and his works, and must fulfil the 
end of his existence. 

*' But higher considerations than these arise out of this ques- 
tion. Has Revelation, in fact, ceased ? or is the present era 
only another form of God's providential dealings with man- 
kind ? When we consider that with Him ' there is no varia- 
bleness, neither shadow of turning ; ' when we look at the 
great beneficial results which modern science has achieved 
already ; still more when we attempt to calculate what the 
future has in store for mankind ; — we cannot but think that 



98 THE THEOLOGY OF 

which demonstrates that man has come from the 
simplest beginnings, solely by such forces and laws 
as belong to matter. 

In this connection Dr. Mivart remarks : " In 
the strictest and highest sense ' Creation ' is the 
absolute origination of anything by God without 
pre-existing means or material and is a supernat- 
ural act.^ 

" In the secondary and lower sense, ' Creation ' 
is the formation of an}' thing by God derivatively ; 
that is, that the preceding matter has been created 
with the potentiality to evolve from it, under suit- 
able conditions, all the various forms it subse- 
quently assumes. And this power having been 
conferred by God in the first instance, and those 
laws and powers having been instituted by Him, 
through the action of which the suitable condi- 
tions are supplied. He is said in this lower sense 
to create such various subsequent forms. This is 
the natural action of God in the physical world, 

Bacon and other philosophers of his day were not too enthusi- 
astic, when contemplating the grandeur of modern science, 
they earnestly expressed their belief that these are the days re- 
ferred to by one of the Jewish prophets as those in which 
* many shall run to and fro, and knowledge be abundantly in- 
creased ; and the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth 
as the waters cover the sea.' Science itself, in its highest and 
fullest development, is religion" — Mind and Body, pp. 83, 84, 
Thomas Laycock. 

1 "The Author means by this, that it is directly and immedi- 
ately the act of God, the word supernatural being used in a 
sense convenient for tlie purposes of this work, and not in its 
ordinary theological sense " — Mivart. 



THE CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS. 99 

as distinguished from His direct, or, as it may be 
called supernatural action." " ' God made man 
from the dust of the earth, and breathed into his 
nostrils the breath of life.' This is a plain, and 
direct statement that man's body was not created 
in the primary and absolute sense of the word, 
but was evolved from pre-existing materials (sym- 
bolized by the term ' dust of the earth ') and was 
therefore only derivatively created, i.e., by the op- 
eration of secondary causes" QCrenesis of Species^ 
pp. 252, 282, L. 1876). 

In a later work, Dr. Mivart, in commenting upon 
the fact that there is no necessary antagonism be- 
tween the Christian religion and the doctrine of 
Evolution, observes : " In order to prove this I had 
to consider the meaning of the word 'creation,' 
and I found that it might be taken in three senses, 
with only two of which, however, we had to do. 
The first of these was direct creation such as must 
have taken place when the earliest kind of matter 
appeared. The second was derivative or potential 
creation : the creation by God of forms not as ex- 
isting^ but in potentia, to be subsequently evolved 
into actual existence by the due concurrence and 
agency of the various powers of nature. Search- 
ing for information on the subject, I found to my 
surprise that the regular teaching of theology 
adopted this view, which was maintained by a 
complete consensus of authorities " ^ (^Lessons from 
Nature, pp. 31, 432, L. 1876). 

1 Among those who believed in derivative creation may be 



100 THE THEOLOGY OF 

Dr. Asa Gray says : " Agreeing that plants and 
animals were produced by Omnipotent fiat does 
not exclude the idea of natural order and what we 
call secondary causes. The record of the fiat — 
' Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding 
seed,' etc., ' and it was so ; ' ' let the earth bring 
forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and 
creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind, 
and it was so' — seems even to imply them. 
Agreeing that they were formed of ' the dust of the 
ground,' and of thin air, only leads to the conclu- 
sion that the pristine individuals were corporeally 
constituted like existing individuals, produced 
through natural agencies. To agree that they 
were created ' after their kinds ' determines noth- 
ing as to what were the original kinds, nor in what 
mode, during what time, and in what connections 
it pleased the Almighty to introduce the first indi- 
viduals of each sort upon the earth " (Darwiniana^ 
p. 181, N.Y. 1876). 

A strong point with the " Christian Scientists " 
is the fact that the fundamental elements of the 
organic and inorganic world are said by modern 
scientists to be the same. The " Christian Scien 
lists " say that, allowing that the material part ol 
man has substance^ it cannot have pain or disease 
any more than a stone or any other inorganic sub- 
cited, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure, 
Albertus Magnus, Dennis the Carthusinian, Cardinal Cajetan, 
Melchoir Canus, Bannes, Yincentius Contenson, Marcedo, 
Cardinal Norris, Tonti, and Suarez — vol. cit. p. 438. 



THE CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS. 101 

stance can have pain and disease ; and, it being a 
manifest absurdity that an immaterial, immortal 
spirit should have pain or disease, there is really 
no part of man that can be subject to pain and 
disease. 

If dead organic matter and inorganic matter 
are the same, does it follow that living organic 
matter and inorganic matter are the same ? 

In this connection Prof. Huxley remarks : " In 
perfect strictness it is true that chemical investi- 
gation can tell us little or nothing, directly, of the 
composition of living matter, inasmuch as it must 
needs die in the act of analysis, — and upon this 
very obvious ground objections have been raised 
to the drawing of any conclusion whatever re- 
specting the composition of actually living mat- 
ter" (^Lay Sermons^ p. 142). 

The fact that organic matter is kept from cor- 
ruption and disintegration, when associated with 
life, appears to afford proof that living matter is 
in some respects different from dead organic and 
inorganic matter. Dr. Huf elands remarks ; — 

"All impressions in a living body are modified 
and counteracted in a manner different from what 
they are in an inanimate body. In a living body 
therefore no process merely mechanical or chem- 
ical is possible ; and every thing assumes the char- 
acter of life" (^Art of Prolonging Life^ p. 228, 
B. 1796). 

If living matter were the same as inorganic 
matter, and matter were the inert, solid, im- 



102 THE THEOLOGY OF 

penetrable substance it was formerly supposed 
to be, and mind the immaterial principle as 
taught, the argument of the "Christian Scientists " 
might possess some weight ; but in the light of the 
disclosures made by modern scientific investiga- 
tion it possesses no weight whatever. Owing to 
the marvellous discoveries made by modern sci- 
entists, it is now conceded that matter is possessed 
of such a conjunction of qualities that even 
thought or mind is a property belonging to it.^ 

As before mentioned, the theory adduced by 
the " Christian Scientists," for the cure of disease, 
is built upon the theory that there is but one sub- 
stance, that substance being mind. That they are 
right in asserting that there is but one substance 
is undeniably true, as the unifying ^ tendency 
of scientific thought leads to a belief in one sub- 
stance ; but the weight of authority demon- 
strates that the substance is matter^ and not mind. 

In this connection Dr. Morton Prince observes: 

1 " It is not to be denied that among students of physical and 
natural science there is at present an increasing tendency to 
doubt or disbelieve that dualistic philosophy which sharply 
defines matter and spirit as utterly antagonistic in their prop- 
erties. There is an increasing tendency to the recognition of 
but one sub-stratum or essence, whose phenomena are under 
certain conditions those of matter and under other conditions 
those of spirit" — Article in Zion^s Herald, by Prof. William 
North Rice. 

2 Dr. Carpenter observes: *' The culminating point of Man's 
Intellectual interpretation of Nature, may be said to be his 
recognition of the Unity of the Power, of which her phenom- 
ena are the diversified manifestations. Towards this point all 
Scientific inquiry now tends " — vol. cit. p. 696. 



THE CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS. 103 

" It is only within the last few decades, that suf- 
ficient evidence has been collected as the result 
of patient and laborious investigation into the 
phenomena of nature, to justify the offering of 
materialism' as a satisfactory explanation of the 
phenomena of the universe and to warrant its 
acceptance. With every addition to our knowl- 
edge, with every fresh discovery in the domains 
of science, the deeper we penetrate into the mys- 
teries of nature the stronger becomes the doctrine 
of modern materialism; until to-day it offers the 
most acceptable explanation of the vital problems 
with which science has to deal. It is difficult to 
understand how any one who has taken pains to 
thoroughly inform himself on the great questions 
of the day and is conversant with the discov- 
eries of late years in the natural sciences, es- 
pecially in the department of biology, can fail to 
find in materialism the most satisfactory expla- 
nation that has yet been offered of vital phe- 
nomena. It is true that what has been accom- 
plished is insignificant compared with what re- 
mains to be done but with every step forward 
the way becomes clearer" (^The Nature of Mind 
and Human Automatism^ pp. 5, 6, Phila. 1885). 

^ "Materialism is a word that has two different significa- 
tions: one class of materialists maintain that there is no 
Creator; another class teach a Creator, but maintain that man 
does not consist of different entities, body and soul, and that 
all phenomena attributed to the soul result from forms and 
combinations of matter" —Spurzhheim's P/ii7osoi)/i/cai Prin- 
ciples, p. 100. 



104 THE THEOLOGY OF 

Prof. Bain observes : "• The doctrine of two sub- 
stances — a material united with an immaterial in 
a certain vaguely defined relationship — which 
has prevailed from the time of Thomas Aquinas to 
the present day, is now in course of being modi- 
fied at the instance of modern physiology. The 
dependence of purely intellectual operations, as 
memory, upon the material processes has been 
reluctantly admitted by the partisans of an imma- 
terial principle ; an admission incompatible with 
the isolation of the intellect in Aristotle and in 
Aquinas. . . . The arguments for the two sub- 
stances have, we believe, now entirely lost their 
validity ; they are no longer compatible with ascer- 
tained science and clear thinking. The one sub- 
stance with two sets of properties, two sides, the 
physical and the mental — ?i double-faced unity — 
would appear to comply with the exigencies of the 
case " QMind and Body, pp. 129, 196, N. Y. 1873). 

Prof. Tyndale remarks : " Believing as I do in 
the continuity of Nature I cannot stop abruptly 
where our microscopes cease to be of use. Here 
the vision of the mind authoritatively supplements 
the vision of the eye. By an intellectual necessit}^ 
I cross the boundary of the experimental evidence, 
and discern in that matter which we in our pro- 
fessed reverence for its Creator, have hitherto cov- 
ered with opprobrium,! the promise and potency of 

^ " Pretended worshippers of God have, in the middle ages, 
carried their contempt for matter so far as to nail their own 
bodies, the noble works of nature, to the pillory. Some tor- 
mented, others crucified themselves, crowds of flagellants trav- 



THE CHEISTIAN SCIENTISTS. 105 

all terrestrial life " ( Addi^ess before the British 
Association at Belfast, 1874). 

Mr. Picton remarks : " Men talked with pride of 
the mastery wielded by mind over ' brute matter,' 
which they blasted with gunpowder, and welded 
by steam hammers and compelled by torture of 
fire to submit to their will. And the soul was un- 
disturbed in its complacency, because every result 
achieved seemed only to concentrate attention the 
more on mind and will as the supreme wonder of 
the world. But of late years a change of tone has 
been manifest; and matter itself in its ultimate 
constitution has become the object not of philo- 
sophic inquiry only, but of an enthralling interest, 
in which vague feelings of alarm and jealousy add 
to the keenness of curiosity. For the once despi- 
cable element, armed by physical science with 
Aveapons of deadly precision, threaten to turn the 
tables on mind, and to reward hasty contempt with 
the doom of annihilation. 

" The truth is, in modern times science and 
philosophy combine to make impossible that old 
sword-and-sheath, or shell-and-kernel theory of the 
world, by which men once expressed the unfath- 
omable contrast of 'within and without.' The 
intimacy of relationship which scientific research 
establishes between soul and body is such, that one 

elled through the country exhibiting their lacerated backs. 
Strengtli and health were undermined in the most refined man- 
ner, in order to render to the spirit — considered as independent 
of the body — its superiority over the sinful flesh " — Force and 
Matter, p. 29, Buchner. 



106 THE THEOLOGY OF 

feels relationship to be hardly the word to express 
what looks much more like identity. And when 
once this is realized, it becomes impossible hence- 
forward to find satisfaction in the ordinary dual- 
istic notion of two substances fundamentally and 
essentially distinct. The issue then seems to be 
blank materialism.^ But when a steady effort is 
made to follow up materialism to its innermost 
significance, it is found to be as penetrable as one 
of Pepper's ghosts : we pass right through it, and 
come out at the other side, — some say, into the 
formless void of infinite ignorance, but as others 
think, into the assured consciousness of eternal 
all-comprehensive Life as the only substance " 
Qlysterij of Matter, pp. 11-13, L. 1873). 

The " Christian Scientists " teach that the mind 
of man, being an idea of "Infinite Mind," has ex- 
isted as long as " Infinite Mind " has existed, as, 
possessing all knowledge in the beginning. Infinite 
Mind can have no new ideas. They also teach 

1 Dr. Maudsley remarks : What an unnecessary horror hangs 
over the word materialism ! It has an iigly sound and an in- 
definite meaning, and is well suited, therefore, to be set up as 
a moral scarecrow; but, if it be closely examined, it will be 
found to have the semblance of something terrible, and to be 
empty of any real harm. In the assertion that mind is alto- 
gether a function of matter, there is no more actual irreverence 
than in asserting that matter is the realization of mind ; the 
one and the other proposition being equally meaningless so far 
as they postulate a knowledge of anything more than phenom- 
ena. Whether extension be visible thought, or thought invisi- 
ble extension, is a question of a choice of words, and not of a 
choice of conception — Body and Mind, p. 26, N. Y. 1884. 



THE CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS. 107 

tliat tlie mind of man is immortal on the ground 
of its being an idea, and thus a part of " Infinite 
Mind." They tell us that it cannot be destroyed 
any more than " Infinite Mind " can be destroyed. 

As before mentioned, the doctrine of the emana- 
tion of souls from the Divine Mind, which includes 
the doctrines of the pre-existence and immortality 
of the soul, originated with the heathen nations 
of the East (see chapter on the Origin of the Doc- 
trine of the Immortal Soul), 

As before stated, /ac^s demonstrate that mind, 
or spirit, is simply the product of a combination of 
particles of matter. On this subject Dr. Biichner 
observes : — 

" The soul is a product of the development of 
the brain just as muscular activity is a product 
of muscular development, and secretion a property 
of glandular development. That which we call 
spirit disappears with the dissolution of the individ- 
ual material combination; and it must appear to 
anj^ unprejudiced intellect as if the concurrent 
action of many particles of matter had produced 
an effect which ceases with the cause " (Force 
and Matter, pp. 197, 13, L. 1870). 

It is not to modern science only that we resort 
for proof on this point. In the following chapters 
we hope to make it evident that the Bible and 
modern science coincide perfectly, in demonstrat- 
ing that mind and body are one instead of two 
separate entities, and consequently that there is 
no possibility of a future life save by the resur- 



108 THE THEOLOGY OF 

rection of the dead, as taught in the New Testa- 
ment. 

The " Christian Scientists " teach that man has 
a mortal mind, as well as an immortal mind.^ The 
mortal mind is a part of the material body, and be- 
comes extinct at death, as the name indicates. It 
is the mortal mind that holds a belief in sickness 
and sin, and that commits crime. The mortal mind 
is not created by God, but is a counterfeit of the 
immortal mind. When, however, as previously 
stated, they are asked from what source mortal 
mind derives its intelligence, they are forced to 
acknowledge that mortal mind does not exists and 
is merely a term. Otherwise they would be forced 
to admit that there is more than one source of 
power and intelligence, and such an admission 
would overthrow their whole theory. The admis- 
sion that mortal mind is merely a term, is equally 
destructive of their theory, as it amounts to an 
admission that the perfect, immortal spirit of man 
holds the belief in sickness and sin, and commits 
crime. As they claim that the immortal spirit of 
man is a part of God, the admission that the im- 
mortal mind commits crime is virtually an asser- 
tion that God commits crime, as the spirit of man, 

1 The hypothesis of two souls, one of them being mortal, 
originated with Pagan nations. " It was," says Beaufobre, 
" that of the Magi, the Chaldeans, and Egyptians ; and Pyth- 
agoras and Plato had it from them" — vol. ii. p. 420. Among 
modern believers in this doctrine may be mentioned Spinoza, 
who believed the intellect to be immortal and the imagination 
mortal — Spinoza's Ethic, pp. 278, 279, L. 1883. 



THE CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS. 109 

if a part of God, must be God. Division cannot 
change the nature or substance of a being. It is 
said that Plato, maintaining that the immortal soul 
emanated from God, and is thus a part of his sub- 
stance, frequently called souls God. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 

Dr. Joseph Priestley, a voluminous and able 
writer on theology, mental philosophy, history, and 
many other things, besides being a distinguished 
experimenter in physical science, early adopted 
the theory advanced by Father Boscovich and Mr. 
Michell, that matter consists of physical points 
only, endued with powers of attraction and repul- 
sion. Dr. Priestley was, in consequence of his 
scientific studies, as Prof. Bain says, "the fit man" 
to deal with the crude and inaccurate notion that 
matter is a solid, impenetrable, inert substance, 
and wholly passive to rest or motion except as 
acted on by some power foreign to itself. Of Dr. 
Priestley's defence of the new theory, Prof. Bain 
observes : " It was by far the ablest defence of the 
single-substance doctrine in the last century" 
(^Mind and Body, p. 189). 

Dr. Priestley remarks: "Since the only reason 
why the principle of thought, or sensation, has 
been imagined to be incompatible with matter, 
goes upon the supposition of impenetrability being 
the essential property of it, and consequently that 

110 



THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. Ill 

solid extent is the foundation of all the properties 
that it can possibly sustain, the whole argument 
for an immaterial thinking principle in man, on 
this new supposition [Father Boscovich's], falls to 
the ground ; matter destitute of what has hitherto 
been called solidity, being no more incompatible 
with sensation and thought, than that substance, 
which, without knowing anything further about 
it, we have been used to call immaterialism.^ . . . 
All the properties that have hitherto been attrib- 
uted to matter, may be comprised under those of 
attraction and repulsion'^ (all the effects of which 
have been shown to be produced by powers in- 
dependent of all solidity 3) and of extension, by 

1 Dr. Priestley says: " The common hypothesis is much less 
favorable to piety, in that it supposes something to be inde- 
pendent of the divine power. Exclude the idea of Deity on my 
hypothesis, and every thing except space necessarily vanishes 
with it, so that the Divine Being, and his energy, are absolutely 
necessary to that of every other being. His power is the very 
life and soul of every thing that exists " — vol. cit. p. 40. 

2 According to Richard Baxter, the most acute of the Chris- 
tian metaphysicians, all the properties of matter, as attraction, 
repulsion, and cohesion, are the immediate agency of the Di- 
vine Being. " Consequently," says Dr. Priestley, " as we per- 
ceive material things by means of these their powers, it but too 
plainly follows, that, in fact, matter is wholly superfluous; for 
if it exists all its operations and effects are resolvable into the 
pure unaided operation of the Deity." ''Pity, that so mis- 
chievous a thing, as he every where represents matter to be, 
should have been introduced at all, when, without the aid of 
superior power, it could not do even that mischief" — vol. cit. 
pp. 85, 86. 

8 "Admitting," says Dr. Priestley, "that bodies consist of 
solid atoms, there is no sort of connection between the idea of 



i 



112 THE SIKGLE-SUBSTANCE THEOKY. 

means of which matter occupies a certain portion 
of space. Besides these properties, man is pos- 
sessed of the powers of sensation or perception^ 
and thought. But if, without giving the reins to 
our imaginations, we suffer ourselves to be guided 
in our inquiries by the simple rules of philosophiz- 
ing above-mentioned [Sir Isaac Newton's rules, 
which were, " Admit no more causes of things than 
are sufficient to explain appearances ;'' and '•^to the 
same effects we must^ as far as possible, assign the 
same causes.'''] we must necessarily conclude, as it 
appears to me, that these powers also may belong 
to the same substance, that has also the properties 
of attraction, repulsion, and extension, which I, as 
well as others, call by the name of matter ; though 
I have been obliged to divest it of one property 
which has hitherto been thought essential to it, as 
well as to give it others, which have not been 
thought essential to it." " The reason of the con- 
clusion above-mentioned, is simply this, that the 
powers of sensation or perception, and thought, as 
belonging to man, have never been found but in 
conjunction with a certain organized system of 
matter ; and therefore, that those powers necessa- 
rily exist in, and depend upon, such a system." 
"Had we formed a judgment concerning the 

them, and that of attraction ; so that it is impossible to con- 
ceive that any one atom should approach another, without a 
foreign poioer, viz. that of the Deity; and therefore bodies 
consisting of such atoms could not hold together, so as to con- 
stitute compact substances, without this constant agency" — 
vol. cit. p. 4. 



THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 113 

necessary seat of thought, by the circumstances 
that universally accompany it, which is our rule in 
all other cases, we could not but have concluded, 
that in man it is a property of the nervous system, 
or rather of the hrain. Because, as far as we can 
judge, the faculty of thinking, and a certain state 
of the brain, always accompany and correspond to 
one another ; which is the very reason why we 
believe that any property is inherent in any sub- 
stance whatever. There is no instance of any 
man retaining the faculty of thinking, when his 
brain was destroyed; and whenever that faculty 
is impeded, or injured, there is sufficient reason to 
believe that the brain is disordered in proportion ; 
and therefore we are necessarily led to consider 
the latter as the seat of the former. 

" Moreover, as the faculty of thinking in general 
ripens, and comes to maturity with the body, it is 
also observed to decay with it ; and if, in some 
cases, the mental faculties continue vigorous when 
the body in general is enfeebled, it is evidently 
because, in those particular cases, the hrain is not 
much affected by the general cause of weakness. 
But, on the other hand, if the brain alone be 
aifected, as by a blow on the head, by actual press- 
ure within the skull,^ by sleep, or by inflamma- 

^ ''An American medical man was called one day to see a 
youth aged eighteen, who had been struck down insensible by 
the kick of a horse. There was a depressed fracture of the 
skull a little above the left temple. The skull was trephined, 
and the loose fragments of bone that pressed upon the brain 
were removed, whereupon the patient came to his senses. The 



114 THE SESTGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 

tion, the mental faculties are universally affected 
in proportion. 

"Likewise as the mind is affected in consequence 
of the affections of the body and brain, so the 
body is liable to be reciprocally affected by the 
affections of the mind, as is evident in the visible 
effects of all strong passions, hope or fear, love or 
anger, joy or sorrow, exultation or despair. These 
are certainly irrefragable arguments, that it is 

doctor thought it a good opportunity to make an experiment, 
as there was a hole in the skull through which he could easily 
make pressure upon the brain. He asked the boy a question, 
and before there was time to answer it he pressed firmly with 
his finger upon the exposed brain. As long as the pressure was 
kept up the boy was mute, but the moment it was removed he 
made a reply, never suspecting that he had not answered at 
once. The experiment was repeated several times with pre- 
cisely the same result. The boy's thoughts were stopped and 
started again on each occasion as easily and certainly as the en- 
gineer stops and starts his locomotive. 

"On another occasion the same doctor was called to see a 
groom who had been kicked on the head by a mare called Dolly, 
and whom he found quite insensible. There was a fracture of 
the skull with depression of bone at the upper part of the fore- 
head. As soon as the portion of bone which was pressing upon 
the brain was removed, the patient called out with great energy, 
' WJioa Dolly! ' and then stared about him in blank amazement, 
asking : "Where is the mare ? Where am I ? Three hours had 
passed since the accident, during which the words which he was 
just going to utter when it happened had remained locked up as 
they might have been locked up in the phonograph, to be let go 
the moment the obstructing pressure was removed. The pa- 
tient did not remember, when he came to himself, that the mare 
had kicked him; the last thing before he was insensible which 
he did remember was, that she wheeled her heels round and laid 
back her ears viciously" — An article by Dr. Maudsley in the 
Popular Science Monthly, September, 1879. 



THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 115 

properly no other than one and the same tiling'^ 
that is subject to these affections, and that they 
are necessarily dependent upon one another. In 
fact, there is just the same reason to conclude 
that the powers of sensation and thought are the 
necessary result of a particular organization, as 
that sound is the necessary result of a particular 
concussion of the air. For in both cases equally 
the one constantly accompanies the other, and 
there is not in nature a stronger argument for a 
necessary connection of any cause and any effect. 

" To adopt an opinion different from this, is to 
form an hypothesis without a single fact to sup- 
port it. And to conclude as some have done, that 
a material system is so far from being a necessary 
pre-requisite to the faculty of thinking, that it is 
an obstruction to it, is to adopt a method of argu- 
mentation the very reverse of every thing that has 
hitherto been followed in philosophy. It is to 
conclude, not only without^ but directly contrary/ 
to all appearances Avhatsoever. 

" That the perfection of thinking should depend 
on the sound state of the body and brain m this 
life^ insomuch that a man has no power of thinking 
without it, and yet that he should be capable of 

1 Mr. Sinnett tells us that Occult science " contemplates no 
principle in Nature as wholly immaterial. In this way, though 
no conceptions of the universe, of man's destiny, or of Nature 
generally, are more spiritual than those of Occult science, that 
science is wholly free from the logical error of attributing ma- 
terial results to immaterial causes " — ^.soieric Buddhism, 
p. 66. 



116 THE Si:S-GLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 

thinking better when the body and brain are de- 
stroyed/ seems to be the most unphilosophical and 
absurd of all conclusions. If death be an advan- 
tage with respect to thinking, disease ought to be 
a proportional advantage likewise ; and universally, 
the nearer the body approaches to a state of disso- 
lution, the freer and less embarrassed might the 
faculties of the mind be expected to be found. 
But this is the very reverse of what really hap- 
pens." 

"That the faculty of thinking necessarily de- 
pends, for its exercise^ at least, upon a stock of 
ideas, about which it is always conversant, will 
hardly be questioned by any person. But there is 
not a single idea of which the mind is possessed, 
but what may be proved to have come to it from 
the bodily senses, or to have been consequent upon 
the perception of sense. Could we, for instance, 
have had any idea of color^^ as red^ blue, etc., with- 

1 Mr. Baxter says that '' nothing could be fitter than matter 
to initiate beings, whose first information of things is from 
sense, and to train them up in the elements of knowledge and 
admiration" — Matho, vol. n. p. 211. 

In the same volume, Mr. Baxter says: " We know not, nor 
can we name a greater absurdity, than that union to a dead and 
torpid substance should give the soul life and power, or any de- 
gree of them; or that separation should again deprive it of 
these. The soul, therefore, must be percipient and active in its 
own nature, independent of matter " — p. 173. 

^ In a work entitled Spirit Life, the Rev. T. Spicer observes : 
" There is no conceivable connection between matter and 
thought.''^ "The soul exists wholly independent of the body 
which it inhabits, although there are certain actions it cannot 
perform without using the body to which it belongs. It can 



THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEOEY. 117 

out the eyes, and optic nerves; of sound, witlioiit 
the ears, and auditory nerves ; of smell, without the 
nostrils, and the olfactory nerves, etc., etc. ? It is 
even impossible to conceive how the mind could 
have become possessed of any of its present stock 
of ideas without just such a body as we have ; and 
consequently, judging from present appearances 
(and we have no other means of forming any 
judgment at all) without a body, of some kind or 
other, we could have had no ideas at all, any more 
than a man without eyes could have any particu- 
lar ideas belonging to colors. The notion, there- 
fore, of the possibility of thinking in man, without 
an organized body, is not only destitute of all evi- 
dence from actual appearances, but is directly con- 
trary to them ; and yet these appearances ought 
alone to guide the judgment of philosophers." 

" If the mind was naturally so independent of 
the body, as to be capable of subsisting by itself, 
and even of appearing to more advantage after 
the death of the body, it might be expected to dis- 
cover some signs of its independence before death, 
and especially when the organs of the body were 
obstructed, so as to leave the soul more at liberty 
to exert itself, as in a state of sleep, or sivooning, 
which most resemble the state of death, in which 
it is pretended that the soul is most of all alive, 
most active, and vigorous. But, judging by ap- 

neitlier see, hear, nor speak, without using the body." Hence 
it follows that, if there is to be no resurrection of tlie body, all 
souls in heaven, according to Dr. Spicer, will be deaf, dumb and 
hllnd. 



118 THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 

pearances, the reverse of all this is the case. That 
a man does not think during sleep, except in that 
imperfect manner which we call dreaming^ and 
which is nothing more than an approach to a state 
of vigilance, I shall not here dispute, but take for 
granted ; referring my readers to Mr. Locke, and 
other writers upon that subject ; and that all 
power of thinking is suspended during a swoon I 
conclude with certainty, because no appearance 
whatever can possibly lead us to suspect the con- 
trary. 

" If the mental principle was, in its own nature, 
immaterial, and immortal, all its particular facul- 
ties would be so too ; whereas, we see that every 
faculty of the mind, without exception, is liable 
to be impaired, and even to become wholly extinct 
before death. Since, therefore, all the faculties of 
the mind, separately taken, appear to be mortal, 
the substance, or principle, in which they exist, 
must be pronounced to be mortal too. Thus, we 
might conclude that the body was mortal, from 
observing that all the separate senses, and limbs 
were liable to decay and perish " ^ ^Disquisitions, 
pp. 23, 45-56, 2d edit. L. 1765). 

^ The charge of atheism having been brought against Dr. 
Priestley he observes : ''It was the common charge against 
the primitive christians and has hardly ever failed to be used, 
on one pretext or another, against every one who has dissented 
from the generally received faith." Dr. Priestley thinks that in 
his case this charge is unusually absurd and ridiculous, " because 
it supposes less power is requisite to create and animate mere 
matter and even to make matter intelligent, than to give life 



THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEOKY. 119 

Dr. Mivart says : " The notion of an internal 
force is very repugnant to some contemporary 
writers. But it is absolutely impossible to get rid 
of the idea of innate powers and tendencies the 
existence of which is everywhere manifested, not 
only in the organic world but in the inorganic 
world also. To conceive the universe as consist- 
ing of atoms acted on by external forces but 
having in themselves no power of coherence or 
response to such external actions, is a manifest 
absurdity. No one thing can act on any other 
except that in such other there is an innate capa- 
city of being acted on " (^Lessons from Nature^ 
p. 280). 

In this connection Prof. Bain remarks : *' The 
more careful and studied observations of physiol- 
ogists have shown beyond question that the brain 
as a whole is indispensable to thought, to feeling, 
and to volition. . . . Yet, although the Brain is 
by pre-eminence the mental organ, other organs 
co-operate ; more especially, the Senses, the Mus- 

and intelligence to a spiritual and immaterial substance ; that 
the former may start up into life itself, but that the latter 
requires an author." He says : ''There is nothing more ap- 
proaching to impiety in my scheme than in the common one. 
On this hypothesis every thing is the divine power ; but still 
strictly speaking, every thing is not the Deity himself " — vol. 
cit. 

"When we look over the annals of ecclesiastical history we 
shall often find it is not within the close ranks of the so-called 
orthodox but from the outlying camp of the so-called heretic or 
infidel that the champions of the true faith have come" — 
Dean Stanley in his Address to the Students at Aberdeen, 1877. 



120 THE SmGLE-SUBSTANCE THEOEY. 

cles, and tlie great Viscera. . . . The facts that 
connect the mind with the brain are numerous and 
irresistible. . . . The commonest observation is a 
blow on the head which suspends for the time con- 
sciousness and thought; at a certain pitch of 
severity it produces a permanent injury of the 
faculties, impairing the memory, or occasioning 
some form of mental derangement; there are 
cases on record where a blow on the head has 
cured idiocy." " Many cases of imbecility of mind 
are distinctly traced to causes affecting the nutri- 
tion of the brain." " Violent emotions are among 
the causes of paralysis which is a disease of the 
nerves or nerve centres." " Sudden outbursts of 
emotion derange the bodily functions. Fear para- 
lyzes the digestion. Great mental depression en- 
feebles all the organs. Protracted and severe 
mental labor brings on disease of the bodily or- 
gans. On the other hand, happy outward circum- 
stances are favorable to health and longevity." 
" Deficiency in the circulation is accompanied with 
feeble manifestations of mind." " General deple- 
tion lowers all the functions generally, mind in- 
cluded. On the other hand, when the cerebral 
circulation is quickened, the feelings are roused, 
the thoughts are more rapid, the volitions more 
vehement." " Inanition, or starvation, feebleness 
of digestion militate against the exercise of the 
mental functions. We have such facts as the de- 
pendence of our feelings and moods upon hunger, 
repletion, the state of the stomach, fatigue and 



THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 121 

rest, pure and impure air, cold and warmth, stimu- 
lants and drugs, bodily injuries, disease, sleep, 
advancing years. These influences extend not 
merely to the grosser modes of feeling, and to such 
familiar exhibitions as after-dinner oratory, but 
also to the highest emotions of the mind — love, 
anger, sesthetic feeling, and moral sensibility." 
" Bodily affections are often the cause of a total 
change in the moral nature." ^ " After great men- 
tal exertion or excitement, there is an increase of 
the product of nerve waste. The alkaline phos- 
phates removed from the blood by the kidneys are 
derived from the brain and nerves ; and these are 
increased after severe exercise of the mind." " The 
memory rises and falls with the bodily condition ; ^ 

1 Prof. Huxley gives an account of a French soldier who was 
shot in the head in battle and after his recovery lived two lives, 
a normal life, and an abnormal life. " In his normal life," says 
Prof. Huxley, "he is perfectly well, cheerful, does his work as 
a hospital attendant, and is a respectable well conducted man. 
The normal life lasts for about seven-and-twenty days, or there- 
abouts out of every month; but for a day or two in each 
month he passes suddenly and without any obvious change into 
his abnormal condition. In this state of abnormal life he is 
still active, goes about as usual, and is to all appearances just 
the same man as before. . . . But he neither sees, nor hears, 
nor tastes, nor smells, nor is he conscious of any thing whatever, 
and he has only one sense organ in a state of activity, namely, 
that of touch which is exceedingly delicate. ... In the normal 
life he is an upright and honest man. In his abnormal state 
he is an inveterate thief. He will steal every thing he can lay 
his hands upon, and if he cannot steal any thing else he will 
steal his own things and hide them away " — Address before 
the British Association at Belfast, 1874. 

2 "Dr. Pritchard, on the authority of the late Dr. Kush of 



122 THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 

being vigorous in our fresh moments, and feeble 
when we are fatigued or exhausted. It is related 
by Sir Henry Holland that on one occasion he de- 
scended, on the same day, two deep mines in the 
Hartz Mountains, remaining some hours in each. 
In the second mine he was so exhausted with in- 
anition and fatigue, that his memory utterly failed 
him ; he could not recollect a single word of Ger- 
man. The power came back after taking food and 
wine. Old age notoriously impairs the memory 
in ninety-nine men out of a hundred. 

" In the delirium of fever the sense of hearing 
sometimes becomes extraordinarily acute. Among 
the premonitory s,ymptoms of brain disease has 
been noticed an unusual delicacy of the sense of 
sight ; the physician suspects that there is already 
congestion of blood, to be followed perhaps by 
effusion." 

"Note the mental symptoms of typhus fever, 
summed up in the phrase ' febrile oppression.' . . . 
There is great inaptitude for the exertion of the 
power of thought, or of motion. The expression 
of the face is dull and heavy, absent, puzzled ; 

Philadelphia, mentions an American student of considerable 
attainments, who, on recovering from a fever, was found to have 
lost all his acquired knowledge. When his health was regained 
he began to apply to the Latin grammar, had passed through 
the elementary parts and was beginning to construe, when, one 
day, in making a strong effort to recollect a part of his lesson, 
the whole of his lost impressions suddenly returned to his 
mind and he found himself at once in possession of all his for- 
mer acquirerDents " — Intellectual Powers, p. 127, Abercrom- 
bie. 



THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 123 

the patient has the appearance of a person made 
stupid by drink, etc' In short the mind is com- 
pletely at the mercy of the bodily condition ; there 
is no trace of a separate, independent, self-sup- 
porting, spiritual agent, rising above all the fluc- 
tuations of the corporeal frame." 

" Most decisive of all, under this head, is the wide 
experience of the insane. Among the chief occa- 
sions of insanity must be reckoned excessive 
draughts on the mind — as for example, long and 
severe mental exertion, and sudden mental shocks, 
usually of disaster and misfortune, but occasion- 
ally even of joy. The association of brain-de- 
rangement with mind-derangement is all but a 
perfectly established fact. In the great mass of 
insane patients the alteration of the brain is visi- 
ble and pronounced." 

"Any person fancying that trains of thinking 
have little dependence on the bodily organs should 
also reflect on such facts as these. When walking, 
or engaged in any bodily occupation, if an inter- 
esting idea occurs to the mind, or is imparted to 
us by another person, we suddenly stop, and re- 
main at rest, until the excitement has subsided. 
Again, our cogitations usually induce some bodily 
attitudes (laid hold of by artists as the outward 
expression of Thought) as well as movements ; and 
if anything occurs to disturb these, the current of 
thinking is suspended or diverted. Why should 
sleep suspend all thought, except the in coherency 
of dreaming (absent in perfect sleep) if a certain 



124 THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 

condition of the bodily powers were not indispen- 
sable to the bodily functions." 

" It has been noted in all ages and countries, 
that the Feelings possess a natural language or 
Expression. So constant are the appearances char- 
acterizing the different classes of emotions, that we 
regard them as a part of the emotions themselves.^ 

" The smile of joy, the puckered features in 
pain, the stare of astonishment, the quivering of 
fear, the tones and glance of tenderness, the frown 
of anger, — are united in seemingly inseparable as- 
sociation with the states of feeling they indicate." 

" That the feelings are closely connected with 
physical manifestations is patent and undeniable. 
But Thought is at times so quiet, so far removed 
from bodily demonstrations, that we might suppose 
it conducted in a region of pure spirit merely im- 
parting its conclusions through a material inter- 
vention. Unfortunately for this supposition, the 
fact is now generally admitted that thought ex- 
hausts the nervous substance, as surely as walking 
exhausts the muscles. Our physical framework is 
involved with thought no less decidedly than with 
feeling " (Mind and Body^, 

1 Mr. Darwin says : " Most of our emotions are so closely 
connected with their expression, that they hardly exist if the 
body remains passive" — Expressions, p. 239. 

Dr. Maudsley observes : '* The special muscular action is not 
merely the exponent of the passion, but truly an essential 
part of it. If we try, while the features are fixed in the ex- 
pression of one passion, to call up in the mind a different one, 
we shall find it impossible to do so" — Body and Will, p. 30. 



THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 125 

Dr. C. F. Taylor remarks : " Whatever that thing, 
function, or idea which we call mind may be, . . . 
it is universally admitted that varying bodily con- 
ditions are accompanied by related variations of 
mental states. Asphasia, insanity, imbecility, are 
so often found accompanied by certain definite 
pathological alterations in the brain-substance that 
they are generally held to be symptomatic of such 
local changes. So, also, though in a more general 
way, melancholia and depression, as well as exalta- 
tions and excitements of the mind, are known to 
depend largely on corresponding general bodily 
conditions of retarded or accelerated physiological 
processes. 

" But it is also held though in a less definite 
manner, that the health of the body may be af- 
fected beneficially or injuriously, by certain states 
of the mind, as hope or despondency. Or, more 
in detail, medical men have observed that certain 
mental states affect certain functions in certain 
definite ways. As for instance, sudden anxiety, 
as of the non-arrival of a friend when expected, 
may cause an increase in the peristaltic actions, 
while prolonged anxiety is apt to cause the con- 
trary effect. Joy over good news or at the return 
of a long-absent friend diminishes gastric secretion 
and causes loss of appetite. The feeble hold on life 
of the suicidal, and the surprising recoveries from 
serious diseases and after apparently fatal injuries, 
in persons whose mental characteristics are hope- 
fulness and determination, are often-recurring facts 



126 THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 

familiar to us all " (Article in Popular Science 
MontUy, May, 1879, p. 40). 

Dr. Biichner says : " What we term mind, 
thought, conception, is the result of natural, 
though peculiarly combined, forces, which, like 
every other force of nature can only be manifested 
in certain materials. . . . That the brain is the 
organ of thought, and that both stand in such an 
intimate and necessary relation that their separate 
existence cannot be imagined, is a truth which is 
scarcely doubted by a physician or psychologist ; 
as daily experience and numerous striking facts 
forcibly impress him with this conviction. . . . 

" The brain is the seat and organ of thought ; 
its size, shape, and structure, are in exact propor- 
tion to the magnitude and power of its intellectual 
functions. Comparative anatomy furnishes us in 
this respect with the clearest proof by showing 
the prevailing law, that through all classes of ani- 
mals, up to man, the intellectual energy is in pro- 
portion to the size and material quality of the 
brain." " The mental capacity of man is enlarged 
in proportion to the material growth of his brain, 
and is diminished according to the gradual diminu- 
tion of its substance in old age." " The brain of 
the aged becomes atrophied ; that is, it shrinks, 
leaving cavities between the convolutions, which 
previously adhered to each other. The cerebral 
substance becomes more tough, its color more 
grayish, it is less vascular, the convolutions 
become smaller, and the chemical constitution 



THE SINGLE-SUBSTAKCE THEORY. 127 

approaches, according to Sclilassberger, that of 
infancy. It is a fact known to every one, that 
the intelligence diminishes with increasing age, 
and that old people become childish. 

" The soul of the child becomes developed in 
the same degree as the material organization of 
its brain becomes more perfect. The brain sub- 
stance of the child is more fluid and pultaceous, 
richer in water, and poorer in fat, than that of the 
adult. The differences between the gray and 
white substance, and other microscopic peculiari- 
ties, become only gradually developed; thus the 
so-called iibration of the brain, which is so plainly 
seen in the adult, is not easily observed in the 
child. The more marked this iibration grows, the 
more manifest becomes mental activity. The gray 
substance on the surface is but little developed; 
the convolutions are sparing, and little vascular. 
'The histological development of many parts of 
nervous centre appear very imperfect in the new- 
born' (Valentin). 'The different mental facul- 
ties,' says Yogt, 'develop themselves gradually 
with the growth of the hemispheres.' . . . ' An 
abnormal smallness of the brain is always com- 
bined with imbecility' (Valentin). The cele- 
brated poet Lenau became insane, and died idiotic ; 
his brain having become atrophied by disease, 
weighed only two pounds eight ounces. The 
gradual decline of the intellect, according to Par- 
chappe, is connected with the diminution of the 
brain. Having taken an average in seven hundred 



128 THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEOKY. 

and eiglity-two cases, he proves by figures how the 
dimiiiutioii of the weight of the brain was in pro- 
portion to the mental perturbation. 

" Hauner, physician to the hospital for children 
in Munich, considers himself justified from his ex- 
perience in asserting as follows : 

" ' Having for many years examined the cranial 
development of all our children, we have gained 
the conviction that an abnormal smallness of the 
skull, though not always leading to cretinism 
and idiocy, is mostly accompanied with limited 
mental qualifications ; while mental perturbations 
are rarely observable in those possessing abnor- 
mally large skulls.' 

" The remarkable vivisections and experiments 
of Flourens prove our law so forcibly, that any 
refutation of it becomes next to impossible. Flou- 
rens performed his experiments on such animals 
which from their physical constitutions were able 
to support considerable lesions of the skull and of 
the brain. He removed the superior parts of the 
brain in layers ; and it is not too much to assert 
that the mental capacities were removed in the 
same ratio. . . . Can we desire any stronger proof 
of the necessary connection of the soul and the 
brain than that afforded by the knife of the anat- 
omist who cuts off the soul piecemeal ? . . . 

" Let us now pass from this anatomical sketch 
to some physiological facts, in order to establish 
the necessary and inseparable connection of brain 
and soul. It is through the nervous system radi- 



THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 129 

ating from the brain, and which may be consid- 
ered as presiding over all organic functions, that 
the brain sways the whole mass of the organism, 
and reflects again to various parts external impres- 
sions, whether of a material or spiritual nature. 
The physical effects of mental emotions are suffi- 
ciently known. We grow pale from terror, we 
blush from shame or anger. The eye sparkles 
with joy, and the pulse is quickened. Terror 
causes sudden fainting; wrath a copious secretion 
of bile. . . . 

" It is an interesting fact, that mental labor not 
merely increases the appetite, but, according to 
Davy, augments the animal heat. Men of a san- 
guine temperament live shorter and faster than 
others, because powerful mental excitement of the 
nervous system hastens the change of matter and 
consumes life more rapidly. . . . Great mental 
power and knowledge produce a favorable influ- 
ence on the physical frame. Alibert quotes as a 
constant observation of physicians, the dispropor- 
tionately large number of old men found among 
scholars. On the other hand the various condi- 
tions of the body are again reflected in the mind. 
A copious secretion of bile has, as is well known, a 
powerful influence on the mental disposition. . . . 

" Finally, pathology furnishes us with an abun- 
dance of striking facts, and teaches us that no part 
of the brain exercising the function of thought 
can be materially injured without producing a 
corresponding mental disturbance. . . . Aninflam- 



130 THE SINGLE-STJBSTANCE THEORY. 

mation of the brain causes delirium or mania ; an 
extravasation of blood, stupefaction and uncon- 
sciousness ; ^ a permanent pressure upon the brain, 
weakness of intellect, idiocy, etc. The greatest 
number of physicians and psychologists are now 
of opinion that all mental diseases are caused by 
physical affections, especially of the brain, though 
it may not in all cases, owing to the imperfection 
of our senses, be possible to establish the fact. 
And even those who do not entirely agree in this 
view, cannot but admit that no mental disease can 
be thought of without assuming a functional dis- 
turbance of the brain. Roman Fischer compared 
the results of three hundred and eighteen dissec- 
tions in the lunatic asylum of Prague. Among 
these three hundred and eighteen cases, there were 
but thirty-two in wdiich no pathological changes 
could be detected in the brain and its integuments, 
and in five only were there no pathological altera- 
tions whatever (the work appeared Luzern 1854). 
No physician can, according to the present state 
of science, doubt that, even in these five bodies, 
there must have been material pathological altera- 
tions though they were not visible. Dr. Follet 
concludes, from the autopsy of above a hundred 

1 " ' The greatest thinker of his age,' says Tuttle, ' may in one 
hour during illness lose all his intelligence ; in advanced age 
he enters a second childhood. The decay of the body induces 
decay of the mental faculties, which become extinguished with 
the last breath, like a lamp without sufficient oil, emitting only 
some feeble glimmers'" — Quoted by Biichner in Force and 
Matter. 



THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 131 

lunatics, that the cerebral mass must, for the per- 
formance of several intellectual faculties, possess 
a certain thickness, and that the more this density 
diminishes and the ventricles become dilated, the 
weaker become memory and the intellectual facul- 
ties in general. According to this physician, men- 
tal diseases are the result of disturbed equilibrium 
of the innervation of the two hemispheres. ' All 
intellectual perturbations,' says Dr. Waschsmuth, 
' proceed from diseases of the brain, which is the 
organ of thought, as shown by the pathology of 
the corporeal organ.' " 

" The pathological facts which support or prove 
our opinion are so numerous and comprehensive, 
that volumes might be filled with them. The 
weight of our arguments has always been acknowl- 
edged by thoughtful men, being accessible to the 
most simple power of observation. 

" ' If the blood,' says Frederick the Great, in a 
letter to Voltaire in the year 1775, ' circulates too 
rapidly in the brain, as in intoxication or fevers, it 
confuses the ideas : if there be a small obstruc- 
tion in the nerves of the brain, it causes madness ; 
if a drop of water spread within the cranium, it 
causes loss of memory; a drop of extravasated 
blood, pressing upon the brain and the nerves, 
causes apoplexy, etc' 

"The law that brain and soul are necessarily 
connected, and that the material expansion, shape, 
and quality of the former stand in exact propor- 
tion to the intensity of the mental functions, is 



132 THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEOEY. 

strict and irrefutable, and the mind again exercises 
an essential influence on the growth and develop- 
ment of its organ, so that it increases in size and 
power just in the same manner as any muscj.e is 
strengthened by exercise. Albers of Bonn states 
that having dissected the brains of many persons 
who had for years undergone much mental labor, 
he found in all of them the substance of the brain 
very firm and the gray matter as well as the convo- 
lutions highly developed. Comparisons between 
the skulls of the ancients and the heads of the 
present generation leave no doubt as to the fact 
that the cranium of the European has, in the 
course of historical time, gained in circumference. 
The important and interesting researches of Abbe 
Fr^re, in Paris, have led to the result that the 
older and more primitive a human type is, the 
more developed is the skull in the occipital region, 
and the flatter is the forehead. The progress of 
civilization seems to have produced the effect that 
the anterior portion of the skull became more 
arched, and the occipital part flatter " (^Force and 
Matter, pp. 49, 106-123, L. 1870). 

Prof. Barker of Yale College remarks : " To-day, 
as truly as seventy-five years ago when Humboldt 
wrote, the mysterious and awful phenomena of 
life are commonly attributed to some controlling 
agent residing in the organism — to some inde- 
pendent presiding deity, holding it in absolute sub- 
jection. Such a notion it was which prompted 
Heraclitus to talk of a universal fire, Van Helmont 



THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 133 

to propose his archaeus, Hofman his vital fluid, 
Hunter his materia vitce, and Humboldt his yital 
force. All these names assume the existence of a 
material or immaterial something, more or less sep- 
arable from the material body, and more or less 
identical with the mind or soul, which is the cause 
of the phenomena of living beings. But as science 
moved irresistibly onward, and it became evident 
that the forces of inorganic nature were neither 
deities nor imponderable fluids, separable from 
matter, but were simply affections of it, analogy 
demanded a like concession in behalf of vital force. 
From the notion that the effects of heat were due 
to an imponderable fluid called caloric, discovery 
passed to the conviction that heat was but a motion 
of material particles, and hence inseparable from 
matter. To a like assumption concerning vitality 
it was now but a step. The more advanced think- 
ers in science of to-day, therefore, look upon the 
life of the living form as inseparable from its sub- 
stance, and believe that the former is purely phe- 
nomenal, and only a manifestation of the latter. 
Denying the existence of a special vital force as 
such, they retain the term only to express the sum 
of the phenomena of living beings." 

After considering the evidences that vital and 
physical forces are correlated, Prof. Barker says : 
*' Nor do these facts rest upon physical evidence 
alone. Chemistry teaches that thought-force, like 
muscle-force, comes from the food; and demon- 
strates that the force evolved by the brain, like 



134 THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 

that produced by the muscle, comes not from the 
disintegration of its own tissue, but is the con- 
verted energy of burning carbon " (Half-hours 
with Modei^n Scientists^ p. 60). 

Dr. Maudsley observes : " When Nature was 
first examined objectively the differences in 
matter appeared manifold, and its modes of en- 
ergy or activity — that is, its forces — appeared 
many also. On a more careful use of the senses, 
however — in fact by the application of the deli- 
cate balance to the products of combustion — 
it became evident that one form of matter only 
disappeared to reappear in another form ; that 
it never perished, but only changed. Elemen- 
tary matter thus passes upward into chemical 
and organic compounds, and then downward 
from chemical compounds to its elementary condi- 
tion. Out of dust man is formed by an upward 
transformation of matter, and to dust he returns 
by a retrograde metamorphosis thereof. Corre- 
sponding with the changes in the form of matter 
are changes in its modes of energy or its forces ; 
to different combinations and arrangements of 
molecules correspond different modes of energy. 
Force therefore is eternal, like matter, and passes 
through a corresponding cycle of transformations. 
The correlation and conservation of forces, which 
have always been more or less clearly recognized 
as necessities of human thought, are now accepted 
as scientific axioms, and are daily receiving experi- 
mental demonstration" {Body and Mind^ pp. 224, 
225). 



THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 135 

Prof. Huxley remarks : " No very abstruse argu- 
mentation is needed, ... to prove that the powers 
or faculties, of all kinds of living matter, diverse 
as they may be in degree, are substantially similar 
in kind. . . . Even those manifestations of intel- 
lect, of feeling and of will which we rightly name 
the higher faculties, are not excluded from this 
classification, inasmuch as to every one but the 
subject of them, they are known only as transitory 
changes in the relative positions of parts of the 
body. Speech, gesture, and every other form of 
human action are, in the long run, resolvable into 
muscular contraction, and muscular contraction is 
but a transitory change in the relative portions of 
the parts of a muscle." " Thus it becomes clear 
that all living powers are cognate, and that all 
living forms are fundamentally of one charac- 
ter. . . . All work implies wastes and the work 
of life results, directly or indirectly, in the waste 
of protoplasm. 

'' Every word uttered by a speaker costs him 
some physical loss ; and, in the strictest sense, he 
burns that others may have light — so much elo- 
quence, so much of his body resolves into carbonic 
acid, water, and urea." 

"After all what do we know of this terrible 
'matter' except as a name for the unknown and 
hypothetical cause of states of our own conscious- 
ness? And what do we know of that 'spirit ' over 
whose threatened extinction by matter a great 
lamentation is arising, like that which was heard 



136 THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 

at the death of Pan, except that it is a name for 
an unknown and hypothetical cause, or condition, 
of states of consciousness ? In other words matter 
and spirit form the imaginary substrata of natural 
phenomena " (Lay Sermons^ pp. 134, 145, 157, L. 
1870). 

In regard to the process by which mind was 
formed. Dr. Nichols remarks: "It is assumed that 
after the lapse of vast cosmic periods in the history 
of the universe, when matter had condensed into 
celestial spheres and partially cooled, the most 
rigid analysis, based on physics as at present un- 
derstood, could not detect the traces of any modes 
of force but gravity, motion, heat, chemical action, 
electricity, magnetism and light. Molecular ac- 
tion on all spheres was intense, chemical change 
wrought with vast power ; but in time the naked 
elements became locked up in compounds, affinity 
and heat waned, upheavals ceased, and the forces, 
all but gravity, merged towards a Sunday of rest. 
At this period, after air and water had formed, and 
the jarring elements had become comparatively 
quiet, two refined and inscrutable modes of motion^ 
life and mind, were developed by evolution from 
inorganic atoms. It is assumed that before nature 
could evolve life and mind all cosmical agitation 
must nearly stop, and such was the period when 
man appeared. It is further assumed that mind 
was developed by matter only in a mature state. 
Before the atoms coalesced to form mind, the most 
refined property in the universe, material struc- 



THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 137 

ture itself was most complex. Mind is too refined 
a mode of motion to continue long on cosmic 
spheres ; it does not appear until they are verging 
towards their dotage. Thought cannot exist in 
the presence of undue heat ; ^ hence it does not ap- 
pear until polar frigidity has set in ; and its dura- 
tion is short, as approaching cold will disintegrate 
complex atoms, arrest the refined modes of motion 
called mind, and chaos again ensues " (vol. cit. pp. 
91-93). 

Drs. Bucknill and Tuke observe : " How any 
combination of cells can be attended by processes 
of thought is to us inconceivable ; but it is not 
more inconceivable than that similar combinations 
should result in the phenomena of life or that a 
combination of atoms should result in the move- 
ment of the solar system. All we can say is, that 
the cerebral cell and gravitating atom are crea- 
tures of the Almighty Creator acting in obedience 
to laws impressed upon them by his fiat, laws 
whose phenomena we can trace, but whose ulti- 
mate nature we cannot understand " (^Psychologi- 
cal Medicine^ p. 351, L. 1858). 

1 In regard to tlie theory of Evolution Prof. Tyndale re- 
marks: " Many who hold it would probably assent to the posi- 
tion that at the present moment all our philosophy, all our 
poetry, all our science, and all our art, — Plato, Shakespeare, 
Newton and Eaphael — are potential in the fires of the sun. 
We long to learn something of our origin. If the Evolution hy- 
pothesis be correct, even this unsatisfied yearning must have 
come to us across the ages which separate the unconscious pri- 
meval mist from the consciouness of to-day" — Use and Limit 
of the Imagination in Science, p. 47, L. 1870. 



138 THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEOEY. 

Dr. Mauclsley says : " To those who cannot con- 
ceive that any organization of matter, however 
complex, should be capable of such exalted func- 
tions as those which are called mental, is it really 
more conceivable that any organization of matter 
can be the mechanical instrument of the complex 
manifestations of an immaterial mind ? Is it not 
as easy for an omnipotent power to endow matter 
with mental functions as it is to create an imma- 
terial entity capable of accomplishing them through 
matter ? Is the Creator's arm shortened, so that 
He cannot endow matter with sensation and idea- 
tion ? It is strangely overlooked by many who 
write on this matter, that the brain is not a dead 
instrument, but a living organ, with functions of a 
higher kind than those of any other bodily organ, 
insomuch as its organic nature and structure far 
surpass those of any other organ. What, then, 
are those functions if they are not mental ? No 
one thinks it necessary to assume an immaterial 
liver behind the hepatic structure, in order to ac- 
count for its functions. But so far as the nature 
of nerve and the complex structure of the cerebral 
convolutions exceed in dignity the hepatic ele- 
ments and structure, so far must the material 
functions of the brain exceed those of the liver. 
Men are not sufficiently careful to ponder the 
wonderful operations of which matter is capable, 
or to reflect on the miracles effected by it which 
are continually before their eyes. Are the proper- 
ties of a chemical compound less mysterious essen- 



THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 139 

tially because of the familiarity with which we 
handle them ? Consider the seed dropped into the 
ground : it swells with germinating energy, bursts 
its integuments, sends upward a delicate shoot, 
which grows into a stem, putting forth in due sea- 
son its leaves and flowers, until finally a beautiful 
structure is formed, such as Solomon in all his 
glory could not equal, and all the art of mankind 
cannot imitate. And yet all these processes are 
operations of matter ; for it is not thought neces- 
sary to assume an immaterial or spiritual plant 
which effects its purposes through the agency of 
the material structure which we observe. Surely 
there are here exhibited properties of matter won- 
derful enough to satisfy any one of the powers 
that may be inherent in it.^ Are we, then, to be- 
lieve that the highest and most complex develop- 
ment of organic structure is not capable of even 
more wonderful operations ? Would you have the 
human body, which is a microcosm containing all 
the forms and powers of matter organized in the 
most delicate and complex manner, to possess lower 
powers than those forms of matter exhibit sepa- 
rately in Nature ? Trace the gradual development 
of the nervous system through the animal series, 
from its first germ to its most complex evolution, 
and let it be declared at what point it suddenly 

1 " Everywhere throughout our planet we notice the tendency 
of the ultimate particles of matter to run into systematic forms 
and that the very molecules are instinct with a desire for 
union and growth" — Prof. Tyudale in a Lecture at Manches- 
ter. 



140 THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 

loses all its inherent properties as living structure, 
and becomes the mere mechanical instrument of a 
spiritual entity. In what animal, or in what class 
of animals, does the immaterial principle abruptly 
intervene and supersede the agency of matter, be- 
coming the entirely distinct cause of a similar, 
though more exalted, order of mental phenome- 
na ? " " Why may it not, indeed be capable of con- 
sciousness, seeing that whether it be or not the 
mystery is equally incomprehensible to us, and 
must be reckoned equally simple and easy to the 
Power which created matter and its properties ? 
When, again, we are told that every part of the 
body is in a constant state of change, that within 
a certain period every particle of it is renewed, and 
yet that amid these changes a man feels that he 
remains essentially the same, we perceive nothing 
inconsistent in the idea of the action of a material 
organ ; for it is not absurd to suppose that in the 
brain the new series of particles take the pattern 
of those which they replace, as they do in other 
organs and tissues which are continually changing 
their substances yet preserve their identity. Even 
the scar of a wound on the finger is not often 
effaced, but grows as the body grows : why then, 
assume the necessity of an immaterial principle to 
prevent the impression of an idea being lost" 
QBody and Mind, pp. 262-264). 

In a letter to Mr. Mill, Mr. Spencer says: "I 
believe that the experiences of utility organized 
and consolidated through all past generations of 



I 



THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEOEY. 141 

the human race, have been producing correspond- 
ing modifications, which, by continual transmission 
and accumulation have become in us certain fac- 
ulties of moral intuition — certain emotions re- 
sponding to right and wrong conduct, which have 
no apparent basis in the individual experience of 
utility (Quoted by Bain in Mental and Moral 
Science). 

In this connection Dr. Maudsley remarks: 
" The native Australian, who is one of the lowest 
existing savages, has no words in his language to 
express such exalted ideas as justice, love, virtue, 
mercy ; he has no such ideas in his mind, and can- 
not comprehend them. The vesicular neurine 
which should embody them in its constitution and 
manifest them in its function Las not been devel- 
oped in his convolutions ; he is as incapable there- 
fore of the higher mental displays of abstract 
reasoning and moral feeling as an idiot is, and for 
a like reason. Indeed, were we to imagine a per- 
son born in this country, at this time, with a brain 
of no higher development than the brain of an 
Australian savage or a Bushman, it is perfectly 
certain that he would be more or less of an imbe- 
cile. And the only way, I suppose, in which 
beings of so low an order of development could be 
raised to a civilized level of feeling and thought 
would be by cultivation, continued through several 
generations; they would have to undergo a grad- 
ual process of humanization before they could 
attain to the capacity of civilization. 



142 THE SIKGLE-SUBSTANCE THEOEY. 

" Some, who one moment own freely the broad 
truth that all mental manifestations take place 
through the brain, go on, nevertheless, to straight- 
way deny that the conscience or moral sensibility 
can be a function of organization. But, if all 
mental operations are not in this world equally 
functions of organizations, I know not what war- 
rant we have for declaring any to be so. The solu- 
tion of the much-vexed question concerning the 
origin of the moral sense seems to lie in the con- 
siderations just adduced. Are not, indeed, our 
moral intuitions results of the operation of the 
fundamental law of nervous organization by which 
that which is consciously acquired becomes an un- 
conscious endowment, and is then transmitted as 
more or less of an instinct to the next genera- 
tion ? They are examples of knowledge which 
have been hardly gained through the suffering and 
experience of the race, being now inherited as a 
natural or instinctive sensibility of the well-con- 
stituted brain of the individual. In the matter of 
our moral feelings we are most truly the heirs of 
the ages. Take the moral sense, and examine the 
actions which it sanctions and those which it for- 
bids, and thus analyze, or, as it were, decompose, 
its nature, and it will be found that the actions 
which it sanctions are those which may be proved 
by sober reason to be conducive to the well-being 
and the progress of the race, and that its prohibi- 
tions fall upon the actions which, if freely indulged 
in, would lead to the degeneration, if not extinc- 



THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 143 

tion, of mankind. And if we could imagine the 
human race to live back again to its earliest in- 
fancy — to go backward through all the scenes and 
experiences through which it has gone forward to 
its present height — and to give back from its mind 
and character at each time and circumstance, as it 
passed it, exactly that which it gained when it was 
there before — should we not find the fragments 
and exuviae of the moral sense lying here and there 
along the retrograde path, and a condition at the 
beginning which, whether simian or human, was 
bare of all true moral feeling ? " 

" We are daily witnesses of, and our daily ac- 
tions testify to, the operation of that plastic law of 
nervous organization by which separate and succes- 
sive acquisitions are combined and so intimately 
blended as to constitute apparently a single and 
undecomposable faculty : we observe it in the for- 
mation of our volitions ; and we observe it, in a 
more simple and less disputable form, in the way 
in which combinations of movements that have 
been slowly formed by practice are executed 
finally as easily as if they were a single and simple 
movement. If the moral sense — which is derived, 
then, inasmuch as it has been acquired in the pro- 
cess of human development through the ages — 
were not more or less innate in the well-born indi- 
vidual of this age, if he were obliged to go, as the 
generations of his forefathers have gone, through 
the elementary process of acquiring it, he would 
be very much in the position of a person who, on 



144 THE SIXGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 

each occasion of writing his name, had to go 
through the elementary steps of learning to do so. 
The progressive evolution of the human brain is a 
proof that we do inherit as a natural endowment 
the labored acquisitions of our ancestors; the 
added structure represents, as it were, the embodied 
experience and memories of the race ; and there is 
no greater difficulty in believing that the moral 
sense may have been so formed, than in believing, 
what has long been known and is admitted on all 
hands, that the young fox or young dog inherits 
as an instinct the special cunning which the foxes 
and the dogs that have gone before it have had to 
win by hard experience "(vol. cit. pp. 54-56). 

In regard to memory Prof. Huxley observes : 
" That memory is dependent upon a physical pro- 
cess stands beyond question. The results of the 
study of disease, the results of the action of poi- 
sonous substances, all conclusively point to the 
fact that memory is inseparably connected with 
the integrity of certain material parts of the brain 
and dependent upon them. . . . We are bound, 
by every thing we know of the operations of the 
nervous system, to believe that when a certain 
molecular change is brought about in the central 
part of the nervous system, that change, in some 
way utterly unknown to us, causes the state of 
consciousness which we term a sensation. It is 
not to be doubted that those motions which give 
rise to sensation leave in the brain changes of its 
substance which answer to what Holler called 



THE SESTGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 145 

^vestigia rerum^" and to what that great thinker, 
David Hartley, termed ' Vibratiuncules.' The 
sensation which has passed away leaves behind 
molecules of the brain competent to its reproduc- 
tion — ' sensigenous molecules,' so to speak — which 
constitute the physical foundation of memory. 
Other molecular changes give rise to conditions of 
pleasure and pain, and to the emotion which in 
ourselves we call volition. I have no doubt that 
is the relation between the physical processes of 
the animal and his mental processes" (^Address 
hefore the British Association at Belfast^ 1874). 

Although Prof. Huxley refers to animals in his 
preceding remarks, he tells us in the same lecture 
that this view applies in its fulness and entirety 
to man.^ 

1 In speaking of the fact that many will assert that such 
doctrines have evil tendencies, Prof. Huxley observes: "If for 
preaching such doctrines as I have preached to you to-night, I 
am cited before the bar of public opinion, I shall not stand 
there alone. On my one hand I shall have, among theologians, 
St. Augustine, John Calvin and . . . Jonathan Edwards. . . . 
I should have on my other hand; among philosophers, Leibnitz; 
I should have Pere Malebranch, who saw all things in God; I 
should have David Hartley, the theologian as well as the phi- 
losopher; I should have Charles Bonnet, the eminent naturalist 
and one of the most zealous defenders of Christianity we have 
ever had ; I think I should have, within easy reach, at any rate, 
John Locke. Certainly the school of Descartes would be there, 
if not their master; and I am inclined to think that, in due jus- 
tice a citation would have to be served on Immanuel Kant him- 
self. In such society it may be better to be a prisoner than a 
judge ; but I would like to ask those who are likely to be in- 
fluenced by the din and clamor which are raised about these 
questions, whether they are more likely to be right in assuming 



146 THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 

The late Prof. Ferrier remarks : In vain does 
the spiritualist found an argument for the exist- 
ence of a separate immaterial substance on the 
alleged incompatibility of the intellectual and phys- 
ical phenomena to co-inhere in the same sub-stra- 
tum. Materiality may very well stand the brunt 
of that unspotted broadside. This mild artifice 
can scarcely expect to be treated as a serious obser- 
vation. Such an hypothesis cannot be meant to 
be in earnest. Who is to dictate to nature what 
phenomena, or what qualities adhere in what sub- 
stances ; what effects may result from what causes ? 
Matter is already in the field as an acknowledged 
entity — this both parties admit. Mind, considered 
as an independent entity, is not so unmistakably in 
the field ! therefore as entities are not to be mul- 
tiplied without necessity, we are not entitled to 
postulate a new cause, so long as it is possible to 
account for the phenomena by a cause already in 
existence ; which possibility has never yet been 
disproved (^Institute of Metaphysics'), 

" Dr. Bastion teaches that one physical process of 
change — redistribution of matter and motion — 
results successively in chemical integration and 
aggregation, the formation of organisms, life, feel- 
ing, thought memory love and will " (Quoted by 
Dr. Maudsley in Body and Will, p. 425). 

tliose great men I have mentioned — the Fathers of the Chris- 
tian Church and the Fathers of Philosophy — knew what they 
were about ; or that the pygmies who raise the din know better 
than they did what they meant." 



THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 147 

Prof. Tyndale says : " Let us reverently, but 
honestly look the question in the face. Divorced 
from matter where is life to be found ? Whatever 
OUT faith may say, our knowledge shows them to be 
indissolubly joined" (^Address before the British 
Association at Belfast^ 1874). 

Descartes is recognized by pre-eminence the 
philosopher of Immaterialism, being frequently 
styled the father of modern mental philosophy, so 
forcibly did he insist on the fundamental and in- 
erasable distinction between matter and mind. 
He assumed that the soul enters the body endowed 
with all possible knowledge, but forgets it at birth 
and gradually recollects it. He refused mind to 
animals, claiming that they were automatoms or 
machines.^ He located the soul in the pineal 

^ '* He was the first," says Prof. Huxley, " to reduce in a 
manner eminently capable of bearing the test of mental pres- 
entation, vital phenomena to purely mechanical principles. . . . 
He sketches with marvellous physical insight a machine, with 
water for the motive power, which shall illustrate vital actions. 
He has made clear to his mind that such a machine would be 
competent to carry on the process of digestion, nutrition, 
growth, respiration, and the beating of the heart. It would be 
competent to accept impressions from the external sense, to 
store them up in imagination, and memory, to go through the 
internal movements of the appetites and passions, the external 
movement of limbs. He deduces these functions of his ma- 
chine from the mere arrangement of its organs, as the move- 
ment of a clock or other automaton is deduced from its weights 
and wheels. ' As far as these functions are concerned,' he says, 
* it is not necessary to conceive another vegetative or sensitive 
soul, nor any other principle of motion or of life, than the blood 
and the spirits agitated by the fire which burns continually in 



148 THE SINGLE-SUBSTAKCE THEORY. 

gland, defining it as substance which thinks but 
has no extension, while matter is substance which 
has extension but does not think. 

Prof. Huxley says : " It is very hard to form a 
definite notion of what this phraseology means, 
when it is taken in connection with the location 
of the soul in the pineal gland ; and I can only 
represent it to myself as signifying that the soul 
is a mathematical point, having place but not ex- 
tension, within the limits of the pineal gland. 
Not only has it place, but it must exert force, for, 
according to the hypothesis, it is competent, when 
it wills, to change the course of the animal spirits 
which consist of matter in motion. Thus the soul 
becomes a centre of force. But, at the same time, 
the distinction between spirit and matter vanishes ; 
inasmuch as matter, according to a tenable hy- 
pothesis, may be nothing but a multitude of cen- 
tres of force. The case is worse if we adopt the 
modern vague notion that consciousness is seated 
in the gray matter of the cerebrum, generally ; for, 
as the gray matter has extension, that which is 
lodged in it must also have extension. And thus 
we are led in another way to lose spirit in matter. 

" In truth, Descartes' physiology, like the modern 
physiology of which it anticipates the spirit, leads 
straight to Materialism, so far as that title is ap- 
plicable to the doctrine that we have no knowledge 
of any thinking substance, apart from extended 

the heart and which is in no wise different from the fire which 
exists in immaterial bodies ' " — Address at Belfast, 1874. 



THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEOEY. 149 

substance ; and that thought is as much a function 
of matter as motion is " {Lay Sermons^ pp. 370, 
371, L. 1870). 

Mr. Fearon says : " In proceeding from minute 
details to a review of general principles, it should 
seem that the doctrines of Immaterialism totally 
fail to supply either adequate, or even comprehen- 
sible, causes for the endless varieties which are 
presented by all created beings ; and in looking 
from the insect up to man, an immaterial agency 
fails in accounting, even according to the doctrines 
of its supporters, for admitted facts and effects. 
Why therefore should the position be contested, 
that matter variously modified and organized 
offers an intelligible solution of, and an adequate 
cause for, all these effects ? And should the diffi- 
culty be raised as to how matter can perceive, 
remember, judge, reason, — the oft-repeated reply 
at once presents itself by shaping a similar inquiry 
for the immaterialist, as to hoio spirit can perform 
these operations, and what evidence can b« given 
of even the existence of spirit, with the qualities 
ascribed. But are we, because we cannot tell how 
these various phenomena are accomplished, there- 
fore to acquiesce in the gravest absurdities, and 
the most monstrous contradictions ? It certainly 
is not known how the brain accomplishes its pur- 
poses ; but, as has been well stated, all are equally 
ignorant as to how the liver secretes bile, hoio the 
muscles contract, how any living purpose is ef- 
fected, how bodies are attracted to the earth, how 



150 THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 

iron is drawn to the magnet, or how God exists ; 
and with Elihu in Job we may ask, ' Dosfc thou 
know the balancing of the clouds, the wondrous 
work of Him who is perfect in knowledge?'" 
(^Thoughts on Materialism, pp. 31, 32, L. 1833.) 

Dr. Maudsley remarks ; " It is remarkable how 
little the advocates of a metaphysical soul, though 
never so exacting in their critical demands upon 
materialistic theories, ever think of the many diffi- 
culties of their own theories, and how quietly 
they pass them by as parts of the big mystery 
which they feel no obligations to explain or even 
to consider. If a soul is to be postulated, surely 
one is entitled to be told something about it. Of 
what substance is it made, because substance of 
some sort it must have if it is individual? If of 
spiritual substance, what conception of spirit is 
possible other than a conception of something 
that is more subtle than the most subtle matter 
known ? 

"Where was this spirit before it entered into the 
body? ... In what part of the body does it 
dwell ? Is it co-extensive with body and yet itself 
without extension? Will it when it takes leave of 
the body be able to feel and think and will in the 
same manner as it does now through the body? 
And if not how will it keep consciousness of its 
identity and have continuity of existence as the 
same being ? How does it now act upon the body, 
and how is it acted upon by it ? How many bodily 
functions are possible without it, and what is its 



THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 151 

part and exact range in these functions that are 
not possible without it ? Do the animals that ap- 
proach nearest to man possess souls, especially 
those that in some measure think with him, feel 
with him, and act with him; and if they do 
whence came their souls before life and where will 
they go after death? Is the animal soul material, 
and the human soul immaterial? Are we called 
upon to make three divisions of substances in 
nature corresponding to differences of properties 
— the last two of them being sorts of spiritualiza- 
tions of matter — namely (a) gross and palpable 
material substance ; (5) animal and quasi-immate- 
rial ; ((?) human immaterial ? 

"That other persons feel as I do, I know by 
their cries and gestures when they are pained or 
pleased, and that they think as I do by their words 
which they have taught me to understand ; in both 
cases, that is, by certain movements that are visi- 
ble, or, so to speak audible to me. I know the 
same of animals as far as gestures and cries inform 
me, which are, after all, more genuine indications 
of mental affections than words; and certainly I 
feel quite as sure that the crouching, fawning^ 
gambolling dog is expressing emotional states as I 
am that a gambolling child or any one who tells 
me he feels them is. What then am I to think of 
these respective origins? That the same kind of 
sensation, sentiment, and reason proceeds from 
entirely unrelated sources in the two cases — in 
the one betokening a soul, and in the other being 



152 THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 

the outcome of matter divinely adapted to per- 
form such functions? And if matter be in any 
case sufficient by itself to perform them, why call 
in the superfluous aid of a soul to do the same kind 
of functions in men ? If it be argued that the soul 
of man stands high on a quite special platform, 
because it has the subjective certainty of an intui- 
tion into its own states, still the objection may be 
made that the revelations of my self-consciousness 
can only have individual certainty, and that the 
intuitions of another person's self-consciousness, 
however certain to him, and by whatever outward 
means communicated from his within^ who is to 
me without^ to my within^ can only have the same 
sort of objective value to me as the revelations of 
an animal's conscious states through its modes of 
communication with me. A subjective psychol- 
ogy, in so far as it is subjective, cannot transcend 
the personal range, or have more than personal cer- 
tainty " i^Body and Will, pp. 119-122, L. 1883). 



CHAPTER IV. 

MIND m ANIMALS AND IN THE LOWER RACES 
OF MEN. 

The best authorities are pretty much agreed in 
the belief that Mind in animals does not differ in 
quality^ but merely in quantity^ from that of man. 

In this connection Dr. Priestley observes : " The 
souls of brutes, which have very much embar- 
rassed the modern systems, occasioned no diffi- 
culty whatever in that of the ancients. They 
considered all souls as originally the same, in 
whatever bodies they might happen to be confined. 
To-day it might be that of a man, to-morrow, that 
of a horse, then that of a man again, and lastly be 
absorbed into the universal soul from which it 
proceeded." Dr. Priestley tells us that the belief 
in an immaterial soul made it necessary for man 
to make some distinction between the souls of 
men and those of animals, so it finally came to be 
considered that the soul of the animal is mortal. 
"An unhappy distinction," Dr. Priestley thinks, 
considering "that brutes have the rudiments of 
all our faculties without exception " (vol. cit. pp. 
283, 284). 

153 



154 MIND IN ANIMALS AND IN 

Dr. Biicliner says: "Man lias no absolute ad- 
vantage above the animal ; his mental superiority 
being merely relative. There is not one intellect- 
ual faculty which belongs to man exclusively ; his 
superiority is merely the result of the greater 
intensity, and the proper combination of his capa- 
ities. The enlarged human faculties are, as we 
have already seen, the natural and necessary re- 
sult of the higher and more perfect develop- 
ment of his material organ of thought. As the 
physical combination of this substance presents an 
uninterrupted scale from the lowest creature up 
to man, so is there manifested a corresponding 
ascending series of mental qualifications. Neither 
in form nor chemically can any essential difference 
be proved between the animal and human being ; 
the differences are great, but only in degree. . . . 
Singularly overestimating himself man has been 
pleased to give the name of instinct to undoubted 
psychical manifestations in animals. But there 
exists no instinct in the sense in which the word 
is usually applied. It is not a necessity inborn in 
themselves and their mental organization, nor a 
blind involuntary impulse, which impels animals 
to action, but deliberation — the result of com- 
parisons and conclusions " (vol. cit. pp. 226, 227). 

Prof. Huxley observes : " I must say for myself 
— looking at the matter on the ground of analo- 
gy — taking into account that great doctrine of 
continuity which forbids one to suppose that any 
natural phenomena can come into existence sud- 



THE LOWER RACES OF MEN. 155 

denly and without some precedent, gradual modi- 
fication tending towards it, and taking into account 
the incontrovertible fact that the lower vertebrated 
animals possess, in a less developed condition, that 
part of the brain which we have every reason to 
believe is the organ of consciousness in ourselves, 
it seems vastly more probable that the lower ani- 
mals, although they may not possess that sort of 
consciousness which we have ourselves, yet have it 
in a form proportioned to the comparative devel- 
opment of the organs of that consciousness, and 
foreshadow more or less dimly those feelings which 
we ourselves possess" (^Address before the British 
Association at Belfast, 1874). 

Mr. Darwin says : " If no organic being except- 
ing man possessed any mental powers, or if his 
powers had been of a wholly different nature from 
those of the lower animals, then we never should 
have been able to convince ourselves that our high 
faculties had been gradually developed. But it 
can be clearly shown that there is no fundamental 
difference of the kind." 

" Of all the faculties of the human kind, it will 
I presume be admitted that Reason stands at the 
summit. Few persons any longer dispute that ani- 
mals possess some power of reasoning. Animals 
may constantly be seen to pause, deliberate and 
resolve. It is a significant fact, that the more the 
habits of any particular animal are studied by a 
naturalist, the more he attributes to reason and the 
less to unlearnt instinct. They are also capable of 



156 MIND IN ANIMALS AND IN 

some inherited improvement, as we see in the do- 
mestic dog compared with the wolf or jackal. If 
it be mentioned that certain powers, such as self- 
consciousness, abstraction, &c., are peculiar to 
man, it may well be that these are the incidental 
results of other highly advanced mental faculties ; 
and these again are mainly the result of a highly 
developed language." 

" The differences in mind between man and the 
higher animals, great as it is, is certainly one of 
degree and not of kind. We have seen that the 
senses and intuitions, the various emotions and 
faculties, such as love, memory, attention, curiosi- 
ty, reason, &c., of which man boasts, may be found 
in an incipient or even sometimes in a well-devel- 
oped condition in the lower animals " (Descent 
of Man, voL i. pp. 34, 46, 105, N. Y. 1876). 

In the second volume of Descent of Man (p. 890) 
Mr. Darwin says : " Every one who admits the 
general principle of evolution must see that the 
mental powers of the higher animals, which are 
the same in kind with those of mankind, though 
so different in degree, are capable of advancement." 
" The following proposition seems to me in a high 
degree probable — namely, that any animal what- 
ever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, 
would inevitably acquire a moral sense or con- 
science, as soon as its intellectual powers had 
become as well developed, or nearly as well devel- 
oped as in man" (vol. cit. p. 71). 

In regard to the moral sense in animals. Dr. 
Lindsay observes : — 



THE LOWER RACES OF MEN. 157 

" All the ordinary definitions of what is vari- 
ously called in man the moral sense — sentiment, 
feeling, faculty, or instinct — apply, though not 
necessarily equally, in the same degree, with quite 
the same sense or force, to an equivalent mental 
attribute or series of psychical qualities in other 
animals, and which attribute or qualities in 
other animals there is no good reason for dis- 
tinguishing by any other name, simply because 
they are to be found in animals zoologically lower 
than man." After giving the definitions of the 
moral sense. Dr. Lindsay says : " There is not one 
of these moral qualities that is not possessed, 
sometimes in a high degree, by certain of the 
lower animals, and more especially the dog ; and 
there are many authors who have been desirous 
of drawing marked psychical distinctions between 
man and other animals, who have nevertheless felt 
themselves compelled by the evidence of facts to 
concede to these other animals, or certain of them, 
the possession of morality akin to that of man. 
Agassiz, for instance, grants them morals ; Froude 
speaks of their principles of morality ; Brodie re- 
fers to the moral sentiments as occurring in gre- 
garious animals ; Shaftsbury allows to them a 
sense and practice of moral rectitude ; Watson 
gives instances of their moral feeling, and Wood 
of their conscience. And certain animals have 
even been described as possessing a moral law and 
codes of morals. 

" The dog, at least, frequently exhibits a knowl- 



158 MIND IN ANEVIALS AND IN 

edge of right and lurong^ making a deliberate choice 
of one or the otiier, perfectly aware of and prepared 
for the consequences of such a selection. The ani- 
mal has occasionally the moral courage to choose 
the right and to suffer for it, to bear wrong rather 
than do it (Elam). . . . One of the many evi- 
dences that the dog is sensible of right doing is to 
be found in the familiar fact that when it performs 
an action which to it seems meritorious, or which it 
has reason to believe its master will deem so — 
when it saves a life, or successfully defends a trust, 
or resists some great temptation — it looks at once 
for some sign of the said master's ap2Jroha.tion^ per- 
haps for some reward." 

" Conscience is frequently as severe a monitor in 
other animals as in man, its reproaches as stinging 
and hard to be borne, its torments sometimes in- 
tolerable. We may speak quite correctly, for in- 
stance, of the conscience-stricken animal thief, the 
cat or dog caught in the act of pilfering from 
the larder. The signs of detected and acknowl- 
edged guilt are the same in kind as would be ex- 
hibited under parallel circumstances by the human 
child. The animal, like the child if rendered sen- 
sitive by previous moral training, shows unmis- 
takably its consciousness of delinquencies." " A 
young dog having committed some offence against 
the established rules of his master's household 
after we had shaken our heads at him and turned 
away . . . although he must have been very hun- 
gry, would not touch his food, but sat close to the 



THE LOWER EACES OF MEN. 159 

door, wliining and crying, till we made it up with 
him by telling him that he was forgiven and taking 
his offered paw, when he ate his supper and went 
quietly to bed." 

" No doubt what is popularly spoken of as a 
sense of right or wrong, of legality, or illegality, in 
the lower animals may, or will if strictly analyzed, 
be reduced to a distinction between what i^ forbid- 
den and what is permitted by man, who is recog- 
nized as a sufficient lawgiver and administrator — 
what will bring punishment on the one hand, and 
reward on the other. But this is just the kind of 
feeling as to right and wrong, legality and illegali- 
ty, that exists in the savage adult, that is gener- 
ated at first in the civilized child, that is exhibited 
(if at all) in the criminal, the lunatic or the idiot. 
It cannot be truthfully affirmed that abstract or re- 
fined ideas of moral good and evil are common to 
all ranks of men, or are innate even in civilized 
men. In our brother man with all the help that 
spoken and written language can give us, there can 
be no doubt of the difficulty, frequently the utter 
impossibility, of knowing whether any and what 
conceptions exist as to right or wrong, good or 
evil, justice or injustice honesty or dishonesty." 
" The human child and the young animal can 
equally be educated both to distinguish and do the 
right " (Article in Popular Science Monthly^ Janu- 
ary, 1879). 

Mr. Hudson remarks : " The rational distinction 
between the human soul and the brute soul is not 



160 MIND IN ANEVIALS AND IN 

very well settled yet ; and the fact reflects no great 
credit on our sagacity or boasted superiority. And 
in the question of moral capacity, some dogs seem 
to have as tender a conscience as some men ever 
had. . . . Many good men — Duns Scotus, Ram- 
sey, Dean, Wesley, Clarke, Tennyson, Theodore 
Parker, Agassiz — have held or allowed the im- 
mortality of brutes. And Bishop Butler and Isaac 
Taylor have remarked that the metaphysical argu- 
ments for our immortality are about as good for 
the immortal life of our four-footed and footless 
neighbors" {Human Destiny^ p. 126). 

In regard to instinct, Dr. Lindsay says : " It 
must be utterly fatal to the supposition, hither- 
to so popular, that instinct is immutable, being 
already perfect, if it can be shown, as it very read- 
ily can be, that the moral and intellectual faculties 
of the lower animals are capable of improvement 
to a high degree, that there are ample evidences 
among them of very marked progress in skill, in- 
genuity, adaptiveness, caution and other mental 
qualities or aptitudes. This mental improvement 
or progress includes even the acquisition of new 
faculties, the development of those which are latent, 
with the perfecting of others" {Mind in the Lower 
Animals, vol. I. p. 233). 

Dr. Maudsley remarks in this connection : " It 
has been the custom to make a mighty deal of the 
difference between instinct and reason, the inclina- 
tion always being, from a desire to exalt reason, to 
put a wider gap between them than actually exists. 



THE LOWER RACES OF MEN. 161 

In regard to that matter I shall take leave to make 
two propositions by way of raising the low and 
bringing down the high — first, that logic is just 
as mechanical as instinct; secondly, that instinct 
is virtually the stereotyped common sense of the 
species " {Body and Will^ p. 42). Dr. Nichols 
says : " As to the nature of instinct, it is asserted 
to be habits fixed by heredity" (vol. cit. p. 94). 

Sir John Sebright expressed it as his decided 
conviction. Dr. Carpenter tells us, that by far the 
greater part of the propensities which are generally 
supposed to be instinctive, are not implanted in 
animals by Nature, but are the results of long ex- 
perience, acquired and accumulated through many 
generations, so as, in the course of time, to assume 
the characters of instinct" {Mental Physiology^ 
p. 229). 

Mr. Tuttle says: "The great gap which is sup- 
posed to exist between the intellect and instinct 
will be filled up and the mind will readily submit 
to the jurisdiction of fixed physical laws." ^ 

Mr. Krahmer says : " The intelligence of the 
animal manifests itself entirely in the same man- 
ner as that of man. No essential difference, but 
only one in degree can be proved to exist between 
instinct and reason." ^ 

Mr. Burmeister remarks : " The human body is 
a modified animal form ; his soul an enlarged ani- 
mal soul." 2 

1 Quoted by Dr. Biicliner in Force and Matter. 

2 Ibid. 8 Ibid. 



162 MIND IN ANIMALS AND IN 

Sir Benjamin Brodie considers "that mind in 
the inferior animals is essentially of the same 
nature with that of the human race, and that of 
those various and ever-changing conditions of it 
which we term mental faculties, there are none of 
which we may not discover traces more or less 
distinct in other animals " (^Mind and Matter^ p. 
178, N. Y. 1857). 

Dr. Morton Prince thinks that mind in animals 
differs from mind in man in degree only. He 
observes : " Materialism teaches us that however 
lowly, they belong to our kith and kin, and though 
it should be necessary and proper that man should 
hold dominion over them, it should be exercised 
with clemency and discrimination. There can be 
no doubt that the belief that man is not only supe- 
rior to the brute, but belongs to a supernatural 
order of beings, has tended to lessen our sympathy 
for those lower forms of creation, and blunt our 
sensibilities regarding them. The belief has 
become too general that the animal is not only a 
machine but an insensible machine, and it too often 
happens that our sympathy remains untouched, 
even though the dog may lick the hand that slays 
it with the knife " (vol. cit. p. 158). 

" The opinion," says Czolbe, " that animals pos- 
sess neither conception, judgment, nor the power 
of forming conclusions, is refuted by experience." 

"It is the height of folly," says the Systeme de 
la Nature^ " to deny to animals the possession of 
mental faculties ; they feel, they think, they judge 



THE LOWER RACES OF MEN. 163 

and compare, they choose and deliberate, they 
possess memory, they show love and hatred, and 
their senses are frequently more acute than ours." 
"It is not from mere instinct that the fox con- 
structs two outlets in his cover, or that he robs the 
roost at a time when he knows that the farmer and 
his servants are absent or at dinner, but from 
deliberation. It is not instinct but experience 
which renders old animals more prudent than 
young ones " (Quoted by Biichner in Matter and 
Force), 

"Beginning," says Dr. Lindsay, "with the low- 
est subkingdom of the Invertebrata — the Proto- 
zoa of zoologists — certain of the Infusoria^ or 
Rhizopoda,, according to Dr. Carter, exhibit will, 
determination, fixed purpose or aim, intention, cun- 
ning, ingenuity in the adaptation of means to an 
end, the recognition of food and the selection there- 
of. The Vortieella is said to ' contract itself upon its 
stem when alarmed or irritated ' (' Globe Encyclo- 
paedia '). Among the RMzopoda Carpenter refers 
to the selection of the materials of construction 
by and to constructive art in Amoeba ; while Hou- 
zeau mentions way-finding to food supply in Ac- 
tinophrys ; and Carter assigns to both animals ob- 
servation, will, and intention in their food-search. 
Pouchet speaks of the Amoeba — the so-called pro- 
teus animalcule — changing its shape ' at will.' 
In the Protozoa feeling is excited by external im- 
pressions. 

"We have then, at the very beginning of the 



164 MIND IN ANIMALS AND IN 

zoological scale, in the capture of prey, a whole 
series of mental phenomena exhibited — will, pur- 
pose, choice, ingenuity, observation, feeling; and 
these aptitudes doubtless involve others, such as 
sensation, patience and perseverance. It seems 
incontestable that choice or preference in the selec- 
tion of food is a characteristic of the very lowest 
animals. If this be the case, certain at least of 
the mental qualities above specified — with others 
— are necessarily involved" (vol. cit. I. p. 52). 

Mr. Darwin, in speaking of the wonderful differ- 
ence in size between what is regarded as the brain 
of the ant and of man, says : " Ants communi- 
cate information to each other, and several unite 
for the same work or games of play. They recog- 
nize one another after a long absence. They build 
great edifices, keep them clean, close the doors in 
the evening and post sentries. They make roads 
and even tunnels under rivers. They collect food 
for the community, and when an object too large 
for entrance is brought to the nest, they enlarge 
the door, and afterwards build it up again. They 
go out to battle in regular bands and freely sacri- 
fice their lives for the common weal. They emi- 
grate in accordance with a preconcerted plan. 
They capture slaves. They keep Aphides as milch- 
cows. They move the eggs of their Aphides, as 
well as their own eggs and cocoons, into warm 
parts of the nest in order that they may be quickly 
hatched, and endless similar facts could be given " 
(vol. cit. I. p. 187). 



THE LOWER RACES OF MEN. 165 

Dr. Lindsay, in speaking of white ants, says : 
"They exhibit /oresz^Af in the construction of long 
clay chimneys for communication with air or land 
or both, during inundations. . . . Their edifices 
or constructive works include galleries and corri- 
dors, magazines, nurseries, royal chambers and 
hall, offices, ordinary rooms and egg rooms, floors 
and ceilings, pillars and other appurtenances " (vol. 
cit. p. 59). 

Of the agricultural or harvesting ant. Dr. Lind- 
say says : " It not only stores up seed but culti- 
vates the plants which are to provide it, and care- 
fully gathers in its crop at the right season. . . . 
In the wet season the seeds in the ant granaries 
are apt to get wetted and to sprout ; and accord- 
ingly on the first fine day the ants bring out all 
the damaged grain and set it in the sun to dry, 
returning to the store only such as is uninjured. 
These ants may truly be said to cultivate their es- 
tates. They have grass paddocks round their nests 
and they weed these paddocks. From their fields 
they clear of all herbage save Aristidee stricta, a 
grain-bearing grass, called by Dr. Lincicum, ' ant 
rice,' and they sow the seeds of the same grass." 

"Among the Arachnida,''^ says Dr. Lindsay, 
"the intelligence, industry, ingenuity, persever- 
ance, cunning, and other mental qualities of sj^i- 
ders are well known. An Australian spider con- 
structs a door with bolts (Baden Powell). There 
are trap-door spiders, that construct and make use 
of a self-acting hinge to their door, which, as mere 



166 MIND IN AKEMALS AND IN 

machinery, is superior to much of man's (Baird 
and Moggridge). Our ordinary British spiders 
devise means for overcoming difficulties, and make 
repairs of their webs, temporary or permanent 
(Watson). They must appreciate losses before 
making them good, they must estimate weakness 
before they strengthen weak threads. They have 
a knowledge of mechanical strain ; they vary the 
structure of their web with its position (Houzeau). 
They even test the strength or security of their 
webs (Percy Anecdotes). They are liable to be 
deceived and to commit errors^ but they discover 
and rectify their mistakes. 

" The use of counter-poise is seen occasionally 
in spiders, for instance when they suspend from 
one angle of a web a small fragment of stone to 
keep it on the proper stretch. Thus a correspond- 
ent of ' Nature ' describes one as having sus- 
pended to his web a fragment of gravel as a mova- 
ble weight, to counteract the effect of gusts of 
wind " (vol. cit.). 

The rose-leaf-cutter bee fixes pieces of rose-leaf 
to her cell solely by calculating upon the natural 
spring of the leaf, and so adjusts the pieces that 
the middle one always overlies a join in the other 
(Wilton). The Chimpanzee constructs a dwelling 
or huts (Chaillu). The gorilla also builds huts 
(Cassell). Some monkeys make a new house 
every day (Cameron). The anthropomorphous 
apes build for themselves platforms (Darwin). 

Many animals possess a wonderfully correct 



THE LOWER RACES OF MEN. 167 

knowledge of time and its flight, and act upon it. 
Domestic animals have regular hours for going to 
bed, getting up, and going for water. Many birds, 
cats, dogs, and other animals know man's meal 
hours. Various tame and some wild animals come 
to be at the meal hours of a family and make no 
mistake as to these hours. Dr. Carpenter tells us 
of certain sparrows that knew when it was twelve 
o'clock, they coming at that time on week days to 
eat the crumbs that were dropped in the play- 
ground of a school near Bristol. Also of a swan 
which came and tapped with its beak at the door 
of a cottage at which it received a supply of food 
at a certain hour every afternoon. 

A certain Newfoundland dog visited a baker 
every morning save Sunday as the clock struck 
eight (Macaulay). A cat belonging to a London 
barrister came to meet him regularly at a certain 
hour, on a certain road, on his way home from 
office (Lindsay). An English setter belonging to 
a Mr. A. in Dedham, Mass., always goes to a cer- 
tain window when the whistle of the one o'clock 
train sounds, and watches for his master. Al- 
though there are a number of trains coming and 
going through the day he never makes a mistake. 

Certain of the lower animals possess a power of 
counting or calculating numbers. Thus in Scot- 
land, the shepherd's dog must estimate exactly the 
number of sheep under his charge. One is men- 
tioned, for instance, that, "during the process of 
sheep-washing, brought to the washing troughs, 



168 MIND IN ANIMALS AND IN 

and without instruction, a series of detachments 
of ten sheep at a time, running off for a fresh de- 
tachment whenever he saw three only left in the 
pen" (Land and Water). "In North Wales a 
shepherd will order one of his dogs to fetch three 
sheep out of a flock on a hill some distance away, 
and the dog will faithfully drive the required num- 
ber to its master — a circumstance, it is added, ' com- 
monplace enough to sheep-breeders.' The collie, 
sent to collect a flock or flocks from many square 
miles of hill pasture, must know their number 
when he brings all together without a single omis- 
sion" (Percy Anecdotes). 

James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, the associate 
of Walter Scott and Christopher North, gives the 
following account of one of the exploits of his 
favorite dog Sirrah. About seven hundred lambs 
which were at once under his care at weaning- 
time, broke up at midniglit and scampered off in 
three divisions across the hills in spite of all that 
the shejDherd and an assistant lad could do to keep 
them together. "Sirrah," cried the shepherd in 
great affliction, " my man, they 're a' awa." The 
dog without delay set off in quest of the recreant 
flock and when morning dawned was discovered 
in a deep ravine keeping guard over the seven 
hundred lambs that he had collected and driven 
into the ravine (^Mental Physiology^ p. 103). 

" A certain Newfoundland dog when offered a 
coin, ' if not at the moment hungry ' would ' hide 
it under his mat,' thus gradually accumulating a 



THE LOWER BACES OF MEN. 169 

fund of coppers, 'from which lie abstracted a 
penny or halfpenny at a time, according to the 
state of his appetite. He knew perfectly well the 
difference between the coins and their relative 
value, and that he was entitled to receive two bis- 
cuits for the larger sum and only one for the half- 
penny.' Sometimes he bought only a single 
biscuit . . . and wished for the change out of 
his penny. Now and then he took a fancy for a 
French roll by way of variety. ... If you gave 
him a sixpence he would receive the change and 
then allow you to take it out of his mouth satis- 
fied with the two biscuits" (Macaulay). 

Dr. Hayes, in his work on the Polar Sea, repeat- 
edly remarked that his dogs, instead of continuing 
to draw the sledges in a compact body, diverged 
and separated when they came to thin ice so that 
their weight might be more evenly distributed. 
This was often the first warning and notice which 
the travellers had that the ice was becoming thin 
and dangerous. 

Dogs calculate and make allowance for the 
rapidity and strength of currents of rivers and 
tides. A miller's dog in order to save a drowning 
small dog ran by the side of a certain river till it 
" got well below the drowning dog " then it sprang 
into the river and swam across: and so exactly 
had he calculated the rapidity of the river, and his 
own speed, that he intercepted the little dog and 
brought it safely to land (Wood). 

Animals patiently submit to, and often seek, 



170 MIND IN ANEVIALS AND IN 

medical treatment. Dr. Lindsay gives the follow- 
ing : A " bnll-dog that had seen a broken arm of 
its master's repeatedly dressed by a surgeon, 
brought to the doctor's surgery a companion dog 
with a broken front leg, obviously introducing it 
as a patient. He gained admission by pawing or 
scratching at the door, and when the door was 
opened, the wounded dog held up its broken fore 
leg to show what was wanted. A second canine 
patient presented itself at the door of the same 
surgery — in this case a single dog standing on 
three legs, the fourth limb having a pin sticking 
painfully in it. Here admission was gained by 
yelping, and the foreign body was extracted " 
(vol. cit. n. p. 373). 

Many remarkable stories have been related of 
way-finding by animals. Dogs and cats have been 
carried in covered baskets and covered carts to 
strange places many miles distant and there escap- 
ing have returned directly to their homes. Sheep 
parted from their flocks on their journey to Smith- 
field market have found their way back to their 
Welsh Hills. "At Falmouth [Eng.]," says Ser- 
jeant Cox, " the crabs caught at the Lizard, some 
twelve miles distant, are taken to the harbor, 
branded with the mark of the fisherman and placed 
in a box alive to await sail. A box was broken 
and the crabs escaped. Three days afterwards 
many of them were again captured at the Lizard, 
to reach which they must have found their way to 
the mouth of the harbor, and having arrived there, 



THE LOWEE EACES OF MEN. 171 

learned by some strange perceptive power in what 
direction their homes lay, for it was far out of any 
possible range of vision and they had been carried 
to their prison in boats " (vol. cit. pp. 273, 274). 

"Many animals," says Dr. Lindsay, "show a 
singular prescience of certain classes of coming 
events. Thus certain birds and other animals 
appear to know when a given district or country 
is becoming infected with epidemic diseases^ in 
which case they leave or avoid the infected district 
or country till the epidemic has disappeared. This 
has been especially noticed prior to outbreaks of 
such diseases as cholera in man." " It is stated that 
a few days previous to the terrible ravages of 
cholera in Galicia in 1872 all the sparrows sud- 
denly quitted the city of Przemysl, and not a 
single bird returned until the end of November 
when the disease had entirely disappeared. The 
same circumstance was remarked in Munich and 
Nuremberg. During the attack of cholera at St. 
Petersburg and Riga in 1848, in Western Prussia 
in 1849, and in Hanover in 1850, every swallow 
and sparrow forsook the towns and remained ab- 
sent until the eradication of the scourge " (vol. 
cit.). 

" Rengger," says Mr. Darwin, " states that when 
he first gave eggs to his monkeys, they smashed 
them and thus lost much of their contents ; after- 
wards they gently hit one end against some hard 
substance, and picked off the bits of shell with 
their fingers. Lumps of sugar were often given 



172 MINT) IN ANEVIALS AND IN 

them wrapped in paper, the package sometimes 
containing a live wasp, so that in hastily unfolding 
it they got stung. After this had once happened, 
they always first held the package to their ears to 
detect any movement within." " In the Zoological 
Gardens a monkey which had weak teeth used to 
break open nuts with a stone." 

" A crane in the Zoological Gardens, London, 
being annoyed while feeding, by a pertinacious 
sparrow, at length pretended indifference; but 
when the tormentor came within range in order to 
steal a share of the crane's food, the latter stuck 
its beak into the sparrow, intending to kill it. 
Failing in this, however, and then deliberating how 
to dispose of its victim, the crane thrust it under 
water in a tank, and it was saved from drowning 
only by one of the keepers " QAnimal World'). 

That animals understand spoken language even 
when not addressed to them is evident from the 
following instance that occurred in Dedham. Mr. 
A. when about to remove from the stove a kettle- 
ful of food that had been cooked for his dogs, said 
to his wife, " I wonder where the holder is." An 
English setter that was in the room immediately 
went out and presently returned bringing the 
missing holder in his mouth, having found it in 
the doghouse where it had been left the previous 
day when food was carried to the dogs. The same 
dog afterwards had a master who had a long and 
severe illness. The dog was his constant com- 
panion until he was able to sit up for the first 



THE LOWER EACES OF MEN. 173 

time, when, to his surprise, the dog immediately 
left the room. He soon returned bringing his 
master's boots in his mouth. 

A certain cat, often seen by the writer, evinced 
no preference for either of her two kittens until 
it was said one day that one of the kittens must 
be drowned. The cat was in the room at the time, 
but went out and took one of the kittens in her 
mouth, carried it to another part of the house and 
hid it. The kitten was found and returned to the 
box where the other kitten was, but was immedi- 
ately carried away again by the mother who hid it 
a second time. 

Dr. Biichner remarks: "It is often said that 
language is so characteristic a mark of distinction, 
as to leave no doubt about the deep chasm exist- 
ing between man and the brute. Such objectors 
are certainly ignorant of the fact that brutes can 
also speak. Numbers of instances can be adduced, 
proving that animals possess the power of mutual 
communication even on concrete subjects. Du- 
jardin placed a saucer with sugar in the niche of 
a wall at a considerable distance from a beehive. 
A single bee happening to discover this treasure, 
was seen repeatedly to fly about the margins of 
the niche, and to touch them with the head, in 
order to remember the locality. It then flew 
away, and returned shortly after accompanied by 
a number of friends, who quickly consumed the 
sugar. Had not these animals spoken to each 
other? Birds especially, as is proved by many 



174 MIND IN ANIMALS AND IN 

instances, freely communicate with each other, 
make appointments, etc. M. Fraviere quotes some 
of the most remarkable and well authenticated 
facts in relation to the power of inter-communica- 
tion possessed by bees. The mode in which the 
chamois place their watches, and inform each 
other of an approaching danger, equally proves 
this power of communication. And can instinct 
have imbued them with this foresight, inasmuch 
as the chamois are certainly older than the cham- 
ois hunter? Many animals which live in commu- 
nities choose a leader, and place themselves volun- 
tarily under his guidance. Can this be effected 
without mutual communication ? But man, because 
of his not understanding the language of animals, 
deems it easier to deny it altogether. Parkyns, 
an Englishman who in his travels through Abys- 
sinia had opportunities of observing the conduct 
of monkey-tribes, remarks that ' they possessed a 
language as intelligible to them as our own is to 
us.' ' The apes,' observes Parkyns, ' have leaders, 
whom they obey better than men usually do theirs, 
and a regular system of depredation. When a 
tribe leaves the rocky clefts which it inhabits, and 
descends into the plain, in order to rob a corn- 
field, it is accompanied by all its members, old and 
young, male and female. The elders of the tribe, 
which are easily recognized by their hirsute ap- 
pearance, are chosen as outposts. They carefully 
in descending examine every gulf, and climb up all 
the eminences to obtain a good view. Sentinels 



THE LOWER RACES OF MEN. 175 

are also placed on the flanks and in the rear; 
indeed, their watchfulness is remarkable. From 
time to time they call and reply to each other, 
to announce whether any danger threatens, or 
whether all's right. Their cries are so sharply 
accentuated, so various, so distinct, that they may 
in time be understood. At the least cry of alarm 
the whole tribe halts at once, and hearkens until 
a second cry, differently intoned, bids them again 
to march." 

"An observer relates that he had recently as- 
sisted at a remarkable consultation of swallows. 
A couple had, in the spring, commenced building 
a nest under the roof of a house. One day a 
number of other swallows appeared on the roof, 
when there arose between them and the builders 
of the nest, a lengthened conversation, manifested 
by their loud cries and twittering. The consulta- 
tion having lasted for some time, during which 
the nest was examined by some individual swal- 
lows, the meeting broke up. The result was that 
the nest was abandoned, and a better location 
under the same roof selected " (vol. cit. pp. 
232-234). 

The maternal instinct is exhibited by animals in 
the most trifling details. Rengger observed an 
American monkey driving away the flies that 
plagued her infant, and Duvaucel saw a Hylo- 
bates washing the face of her young ones in a 
stream. " So intense is the grief of female monkeys 
for the loss of their young, that it invariably caused 



176 2MIND DT ani:mai.s AXD IK 

the death of certain kinds kept under confinement 
by Brehm in N. Africa (Darwin). 

"Orphan-monkeys," saj'S Mr. Darwin, "were 
always adopted and carefully guarded by the other 
monkeys, both males and females. One female 
baboon had so capacious a heart that she not only 
adopted young monkeys of other species, but stole 
young dogs and cats which she continually carried 
about. Her kindness, however, did not go so far 
as to share her food with her adopted offspring^ 
at which Brehm was surprised, as his monkeys 
always divided everything quite fairly with their 
own j^oung ones. An adopted kitten scratched 
the above mentioned affectionate baboon, who 
certainly had a fine intellect, for she was much 
astonished at being scratched, and immediately 
examined the kitten's feet, and without more ado 
bit off the claws." 

" A certain species of hermit crab shows ' care 
and affection ' for the cloak anemone which is at- 
tached to his shell home. ' He has been noticed 
to feed the anemone with his pincerlike claws.' 
And when he casts his shell for a larger one, ' he 
carefully detaches the helpless anemone from the 
old habitation, and assists it in gaining a firm basis 
and support on the new shell ' " (Darwin). 

" Capt. Stansbury found on a salt lake in Utah an 
old and completely blind pelican, which was very 
fat and must have been long and well fed by his 
companions. Mr. Blyth, saw Indian crows feeding 
two or three of their companions which were 



THE LOWER RACES OF MEN. 177 

blind ; and I have heard of an analogous case with 
the domestic cock (Darwin). 

^' Rats," says Dr. Lindsay, " show a ' thoughtful 
tenderness for each other that may well put Chris- 
tians to the blush.' ... A young rat had. fallen 
into a pail of pig-food. Six elder ones held a con- 
sultation so earnest in its character as to lead them 
to ignore the presence of human onlookers. They 
decided on an ingenious scheme of rescue, and 
successfully carried it out. Entwining their legs 
together they formed a chain hanging downwards 
over the edge of the pail. The foremost or down- 
most rat grasped the drowning — and, as it subse- 
quently proved, drowned — young one in its fore 
paws, and both rescued and rescuer were then 
drawn up and out. When found to be dead the 
rescuers gazed at their young comrade in 'mute 
despair,' . . . wiped the tears from their eyes with 
their fore paws, and departed without making any 
attempt to resuscitate it." 

The Animal World gives an account of certain 
sparrows that tried to lift a wounded companion 
by seizing its wings with their bills, and, having 
failed to lift the bird in this manner, " got a twig 
and while the maimed bird took hold of its centre 
by its bill, two of its companions seized, one on 
each of the ends, so raised the helpless sparrow 
from the ground, and removed it to a safer place." 

Mrs. T , the wife of an American army offi- 
cer, while residing at a fort on the New England 
coast, one day saw an old, gray, blind rat led out 



178 MIND IN ANIMALS AND IN 

into the sunshine by two young rats who had 
placed a stick in the mouth of the old rat, each of 
the young ones having an end of the stick in its 
mouth. This was repeated day after day at pre- 
cisely the same time of the day. 

" Mr. Lonsdale," says Mr. Darwin, " informs me 
that he placed a pair of land-snails QHelix Pomatia)^ 
one of which was weakly, into a small and ill-pro- 
vided garden. After a short time the strong and 
hearty individual disappeared and was traced by 
its track of slime over a wall into an adjoining 
well-stocked garden. Mr. Lonsdale concluded it 
had deserted its sickly mate ; but after an absence 
of twenty-four hours it returned, and apparently 
communicated the result of its successful explora- 
tion, for both then started along the same track 
and disappeared over the wall" (vol. cit. i. p. 325). 

The affection that animals exhibit for those who 
have the care of them is too well known to be 
commented upon. Dr. Lindsay speaks of the love 
of a dog for his master as transcending the love of 
man for his fellow-man, or towards God. " It is 
love," he says, "that does not change as and be- 
cause its idol changes, that submits unmurmuringly 
to all offences ... a kind of love in short, not 
usually ascribed to or possessed by man." Robert 
Burns has said that man is the god of the dog, his 
deity, idol, or hero. 

In order to comprehend that the intellectual 
scale from brute to man is not interrupted, we 
must descend to the lower spheres of human society. 



THE LOWER EACES OF MEN. 179 

Dr. Lindsay remarks : " Those who contend for 
man's supremacy over all other animals . . . de- 
scribe him as the only animal that constructs for 
himself, in the form of dwellings of some kind, a 
permanent and proper shelter from the vicissitudes 
of the weather. . . . There are, or have been, many 
savage races who either constructed or construct 
no dwellings of any kind, or whose huts or hovels 
cannot compare architecturally with the nests or 
other habitations of many of the lower animals. 
Certain pre-historic people, some ancient savage 
races, such as the Caribs, and also some existing 
savages, made or make use of the natural shelter 
afforded by rocks, caves, forests or trees," some 
digging holes in the earth. The South African 
Bushmen live in holes in the earth dug out with 
their hands (Biichner) and thatched with reeds so 
badly put together that the rain pours through. 
Here they lie close like pigs in a sty (Sicheser). 
The huts of many Central African savages resem- 
ble externally the ant-hills of Termites (Adanson). 
There are no dwellings, or no fixed ones, among 
the Dokas. The natives of the Philippine Islands 
and Borneo sleep under trees, or on trees, or in 
caves. The Apache Indians sleep in hollows of 
the ground (Biichner). The Veddas of Ceylon 
live in forests without dwellings, or they shelter 
themselves in caves or hollow tree-trunks, or 
"roost on trees" (Hartshorn). The Buckonos 
"roost" in trees on a platform of sticks (Lind- 
say). These dwellings are nests rather than huts, 



180 MIND IN ANIMALS AND IN 

though covered with a cone-shaped roof, also of 
sticks thatched with grass (Lady Yerner). The 
wild people — the jungle dwarfs — of the Western 
Ghats in the Tinnivelly district of India have no 
fixed dwellings or dwelling-places. They sleep in 
any convenient spot, generally between two rocks, 
or in caves near which they happen to be benighted 
(Bond). "These wild folk of the hill jungles of 
the Madras Presidency are in reality modern trog- 
lodytes or cave-dwellers, the representatives of 
those prehistoric men whose remains possess so 
much interest for anthropologists" (Lindsay). 

"Not only do the wild people have no proper 
dwelling, but there is incapacity for constructing 
artificial shelter " (Lindsay). 

We are told that "among the many epithets 
that have been bestowed on man to distinguish 
him from all other animals, he has been described 
as pre-eminently a cooking animal — the only ani- 
mal who cooks or prepares his food prior to using 
it " (Lindsay). " There are many savage races of 
men who use flesh and fruits in their raw state, 
sometimes, even in a condition of disgusting putrid- 
ity. Not only so, but they devour living animals, or 
flesh cut from living animals. Moreover, they tear 
flesh food with their teeth after the manner of Car- 
nivora " (Lindsay). Until the arrival of the Euro- 
peans the Australians knew nothing about cooking 
or boiling food (Biichner). Carrion-eating is com- 
mon among the Zulus (Colenso). The Bushmen 
of South Africa live partly upon small birds which 



THE LOWER EACES OF MEN. 181 

they swallow unplucked. Lizards are eaten raw 
by the Digger Indians, and they also eat dead 
horses. Part of the food of the Apache Indians 
consists of stolen horses and asses. The beasts 
are not slaughtered, but torn asunder. There is 
no cooking of any kind among the Dokas and 
Mincopies, the food being eaten raw (Biichner). 
The Hamram Arab in Abyssinia, cuts and eats 
steaks from live oxen (Lindsay). The Veddas of 
Ceylon, live on wild honey, lizards, and the flesh 
of monkeys, deer, and boars (Hartshorn). Wild 
men and the wolf children of India tear and eat 
raw flesh, gather and gnaw bones like dogs, catch 
and swallow flies, bite the heads off live fowls, lap 
water with their tongues (Lindsay). Gerhardt 
says they still pick up bones and sharpen their 
teeth on them. According to Colonel Sleeman a 
wolf-child found in company with a wolf and her 
cubs, delighted in raw flesh and bones putting 
them out on the ground under his paws like a 
dog. 

The Caribs eat their parents or other relatives 
and even their own children (Biichner). Other 
savage tribes are earth-eaters. 

The Ladrone Islanders were formerly ignorant 
of the use of fire for cooking or warmth (Biich- 
ner). Savages of Aveyron go on all fours. 
Among the Nincopies there are either no tools or 
scarcely any idea of using them, while the Dokas 
have no weapons (Biichner). The Veddas of 
Ceylon show a habitual disregard of any sort of 



182 ISHND IN ANIMALS AND IN 

ablutions. They never laugh and are unable to 
distinguish colors (Hartshorn). The wild men 
in the interior of Borneo live absolutely in a state 
of nature. They never cultivate the ground nor 
live in huts and do not associate with each other 
but rove about like wild beasts (Dalton). The 
aborigines of Borneo, in common with the Aus- 
tralian blacks, on account of their unbounded 
stupidity cannot be used as slaves (Biichner). 
The faculty of memory among the Veddas is 
almost wholly absent (Hartshorn). The Apache 
Indians have no notion of their own age, or of 
counting up years (Biichner). The Dokas have 
no social or other laws (Biichner). The Minco- 
pies have no specific or proper spoken language 
(Smith). Some have no policy nor plans of action, 
no history and scarcely any oral tradition, no idea 
of time, no territorial, tribal, or other property, no 
traffic nor commerce, absence of agriculture, some- 
times even no hunting of wild animals for food, 
also absence of money or coinage (Lindsay). 

The Veddas of Ceylon are quite unable to 
count. . . . They cannot count even by the aid of 
their fingers, having no conception of numbers 
(Hartshorn). Among the Amazon Indians there 
are no words for numbers and there is a similar 
want of arithmetical power. The most limited 
ideas of numbers prevail among the Eskimo and 
Australian blacks (Houzeau). Even at the pres- 
ent day many savage tribes of Brazil and Australia 
cannot count beyond two or four. The aborigines 



THE LOWER EACES OF MEN. 183 

of Kew Caledonia " can with difficulty count the 
lowest numbers." So that counting, arithmetic, 
or an arithmetical sense, are certainly not innate 
in man (Biichner). 

Such a thing as gratitude is quite unknown in 
the West African negro (Monteiro). To a New 
Zealander gratitude was wholly unknown. They 
have no word for it in their language (Colenso). 
Among the Fijis gratitude is unknown (Biichner). 
The Angola negro has no words or expression ' in- 
dicative of love ; ' nor does he show such emotion 
himself (Monteiro). Among the African Satookas 
there is no such thing as love. Women are so far 
appreciated as they are valuable animals (Baker). 

Among the Dokas mothers suckle their infants 
but a short time and then abandon them. There 
is no home-life, no attachment to kindred (Biich- 
ner). In East African negroes there is no attach- 
ment between father and child, but on the contrary 
there prevails, after the time of childhood, a natu- 
ral enmity between father and son. The children 
are sold ; the wife driven out of doors at pleasure 
(Burton). Among the Spanish negroes there 
is no family or personal love. Of certain South 
African negroes it is seldom that one cares for 
another . . . even for their sick and dying they 
have no concern (Dr. Rainey). The Fijians have 
not the least scruple in burying a father alive 
when he begins to be infirm, and assist in 
strangling a mother, so that she may keep him 
company. ... It is the glory of a North Ameri- 



184 MIND IN ANIMALS AND IN 

can Indian boy at as early an age as possible to 
despise his mother and defy his father, while the 
young women utterly despise the elder and feebler 
women, even though they be their own mothers. 
Girls ' will tear out of the hands ' of elder women, 
including their own mothers, the food which they 
are about to eat, on the plea that old women are 
no use, and that the food will be much better em- 
ployed nourishing the young and the strong (Wood). 
Among the Bushmen and Australian blacks the 
father is just as likely as not to murder his child 
as soon as it is born — perhaps more likely than 
not. And if he be angry with any one for any 
reason, he has a way of relieving his feelings by 
driving his spear through his wife or child, which- 
ever happens to be nearest. Even the mother 
treats her child rather worse than the cow treats 
her calf (Wood). 

The old navigator, Byron, described a barbarian 
who dashed his child on the rocks for sj)illing a 
basket of sea-urchins (Darwin). A barbarian 
chief gave one of his many children to a sea-cap- 
tain of Falmouth, Mass., and told the captain to 
kill the boy if he was not good. 

The Indians of Terra del Fuego will sooner kill 
their old women than their dogs^ (Biichner). 
The South African Bushmen will kill their chil- 

1 Mr. Darwin says of the Indians of Terra del Fuego: "It is 
certainly true that when pressed in winter by hunger, they kill 
and devour their old women before they kill their dogs. The 
boy being asked why they did this answered, 'Doggies catch 
otters, old women no' " —Journal of Besearches. 



\ 



THE LOWEE EACES OF MEN. 185 

dren without remorse, strangling or smothering 
them when feed is scarce (Biichner). Putting to 
death the aged to save trouble is common (Biich- 
ner). In New Caledonia the aged are buried alive 
(Biichner). They have no respect for the dead, 
no proper burial rites (Lindsay). 

" The Digger Indians have a face ' devoid of all 
expression ' while in the Brazilian Botokudo eyes 
' without lustre or soul ' look staring dull and 
without intelligence" (Biichner). Mentally the 
Australian aborigines are mere children, finding 
amusement only in childish tricks and trifles. 
They cannot be taught any principles (Biichner). 
The East African Negro combines all the inca- 
pacity of childhood with the obstinacy and stupid- 
ity of age (Burton). The Brazilian aborigines 
are animals in their actions, wholly destitute of 
any intellectual tendencies (Burmeister). In the 
wildernesses of Borneo and Sumatra, and Polyne- 
sian islands, there are hordes of savages whose 
resemblance to the baboon is striking, and whose 
physical and mental superiority above the brute is 
scarcely perceptible. They possess little memory, 
and still less imagination. They appear incapable 
of reflecting on the past, or to provide for the 
future ; nothing but hunger disturbs their apathj-. 
No other mental capacity can be discovered in 
them, but the low brutish cunning ascribed to apes 
(Hope). 

Among the Ape-like tree-men of the Malay 
Peninsula not even the rudiments of morality 



186 MIND IN ANIMALS, AND IN 

seemed to exist (Bradley). The nations of the 
White Nile district are inaccessible to all moral 
feeling, while the Bari has not a moral human in- 
stinct (Baker). With the Brazilian Basokudo 
immorality is normal (Biichner). The Negroes 
of East Sudan not merely justify deceit, theft, 
and murder, but consider them meritorious acts 
(Brehm). The Somalis consider a well-executed 
theft the most agreeable way of obtaining a liveli- 
hood (Captain Speke). "Among the Fijis, shed- 
ding blood is no crime, but a glorious action, 
whether the victim, man, woman or child, be slain 
in battle or treacherously murdered. To be ac- 
knowledged a murderer is the ambition of these 
islanders. Children kill their parents and the 
parents their children without the least scruple " 
(Biichner). 

The Negro of Eastern Tropical Africa " have or 
know no conscience (Burton). Werner Munzin- 
ger says of the Bogos, that their ideas of good and 
had relate only to useful and useless. Waitz says, 
that a man interrogated about his notions respect- 
ing the difference between good and evil, first 
avowed his ignorance, but after some reflection 
said, " Good is to carry off the wives of others, but 
bad when others steal our wives." Captain Burton 
says it is time to face the fact that conscience is a 
purely geographical and chronological fact. 

Australians have no words to express the ideas 
of God, religion, righteousness, sin ; and there are 
numerous examples of savage nations . . . who 



THE LOWER EACES OF MEN. 187 

have no words in their language to express such 
ideas (Biichner). The Andaman Islanders have 
no conception of a Supreme Being (Dr. Mivart). 
The blacks of Night Island, according to the 
French castaway, Narcisse Pellier, have no knowl- 
edge of a Supreme Being and no form of religion 
of any kind whatever. The Kaloshes, an Indian 
tribe, have no religious mode of worship, and im- 
agine the Supreme Being to be a raven (Biichner). 
The Corrados, the former masters of the province 
of Rio de Janeiro, possess no desire for a religion 
(Burmeister). The South American aborigines 
have no conception of a religion (Biichner). The 
natives of Australia are deficient in the idea of a 
creator or moral governor of the world, and all 
attempts to instruct them terminate in a sudden 
break up of the conversation (Hasskarl). The 
Bechuanas, one of the most intelligent tribes of 
the interior of South Africa, have no idea of a 
Supreme Being, and there is no word to be found 
in their language for the conception of a creator 
(Anderson). The Kaffirs, a race physically and 
intellectually much developed, have not the least 
idea of a Supreme Being — their chief is their God 
(Opperman). The Indians of King's Mill Islands 
"have na real religion, nor temples nor idols. 
They adore spirits ; but since they have been deci- 
mated by an epidemic, they no longer put any 
confidence in them" (Randall). The inhabitants 
of Pasamah Labar, in the isle of Sumatra, worship 
neither idols nor any natural objects, and have no 



188 MIND IN ANIMALS, ETC. 

idea of a Supreme Being (Biichner). "Ladislaus 
Magyar found no trace of religion among the 
Negroes of Oucanyama, one of the numerous 
stations of South Africa ; it seems as if they wor- 
shipped their king, by sacrificing to him both 
human beings and animals" (Biichner). "The 
indolent Hottentots acknowledge a good and a 
bad divine principle, but have neither temple nor 
proper mode of worship, except dancing at the 
time of the full moon. The dwarfed Bushmen, 
a degenerate tribe of the former race, possess no 
worship whatever" (Biichner). 

Sir John Lubbock says that we have much diffi- 
culty in realizing the extreme mental inferiority 
of the lower savages. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRIKE OF THE IMMOR- 
TAL SOUL. 

If the Bible and Science do not give evidence 
of an immaterial immortal soul or spirit, the ques- 
tion arises as to the origin and wide-spread preva- 
lence of such a belief. 

The interesting and elaborate inquiries prose- 
cuted by Sir John Lubbock, Edward Burnett Ty- 
lor, and Mr. M'Lennan, with regard to the mental 
condition and modes of thinking of the lower races, 
have contributed the first chapter of the doctrine 
of the soul, bringing the development of religious 
ideas down to the point where Greek philosophy 
took its start. 

Mr. Tylor observes : " What the doctrine of the 
soul is among the lower races, may be explained 
by a theory of its development. It seems as 
though thinking men, as yet at a low level of 
culture, were deeply impressed by two groups of 
biological problems. In the first place, what is it 
that makes the difference between a living soul 
and a dead one ; what causes waking, sleep, trance, 
disease, death ? In the second place, what are those 

189 



190 THE ORIGIN OF THE DOCTEINE 

human sliapes whicli appear in dreams and vis- 
ions? Looking at the two groups of phenomena, 
the ancient savage philosophers practically made 
each help to account for the other, by combining 
both in a conception which we may call an appa- 
ritional-soul, a ghost-souL The conception of a 
personal soul or spirit among the lower races may 
be defined as follows: It is a thin unsubstantial 
human image, in its nature a sort of film or shad- 
ow; the cause of life and thought in the individual 
it animates ; independently possessing the personal 
consciousness and volition of its corporeal owner, 
past or present; capable of leaving the body far 
behind to flash quickly from place to place ; 
mostly impalpable and invisible, yet also mani- 
festing physical power, and especially appearing 
to men waking or asleep as a phantom separate 
from the body ^ of which it bears the likeness ; also 
to enter into, possess, and act in the bodies of 
other men, of animals and even of things. Though 
this definition is by no means of universal applica- 
tion, it has sufficient generality to be taken as a 
standard, modified by more or less divergence 
among any particular people." 

1 Sir John Lubbock, in speaking of dreams, says: "To the 
savage they have a reality which we can scarcely appreciate. 
During sleep the spirit seems to desert the body; and as in 
dreams we visit other localities and even other worlds, living 
as it were a separate and different life, the two phenomena are 
not unnaturally regarded as the complements of one another. 
Hence the savage considers the events in his dreams to be 
as real as those of his waking hours, and hence he naturally 
feels that he has a spirit that can quit the body" — Origin of 
Civilization, p. 126, N. Y. 1870. 



OF THE IMMOETAL SOUL. 191 

" Far," says Mr. Tylor, " from these world-wide 
opinions being arbitrary or conventional products, 
it is seldom even justifiable to consider their uni- 
formity among distant races as proving communi- 
cation of any sort. They are doctrines answering 
in the most forcible way to the plain evidence of 
men's senses, as interpreted by a fairly consistent 
and rational primitive philosophy. So well, indeed, 
does the theory account for the facts, that it has 
held its place into the higher levels of education. 
Though classic and mediseval philosophy modified 
it much, and modern philosophy has handled it 
yet more unsparingly, it has so far retained the 
traces of its original character, that heirlooms of 
primitive ages may be claimed in the existing psy- 
chology of the civilized world. Out of the vast 
mass of evidence, collected among the most various 
and distant races of mankind, typical details may 
be selected to display the earlier theory of the 
soul, the relation of the parts of this theory, and 
the manner in which these parts have been aban- 
doned, modified, or kept up along the course of 
culture." 

In regard to the belief that animals possessed 
souls, Mr. Tylor says : " The sense of an absolute 
physical distinction between man and beast, so 
prevalent in the civilized world, is hardly to be 
found among the lower races. Men to whom the 
cries of beasts and birds seem like human language, 
and their actions guided as it were by thouglit, logi- 
cally enough allow the existence of souls to beasts. 



192 THE ORIGIN OF THE DOCTEIKB 

birds, reptiles, as to men. The lower psychology 
cannot but recognize in beasts the very character- 
istics which it attributes to the human soul, 
namely the phenomena of life and death, will and 
judgment, and the phantom seen in vision or in 
dream. As for believers in the great doctrine of 
metempsychosis, these not only consider that an 
animal may have a soul, but that this soul may 
have inhabited a human being, and thus the crea- 
ture may be in fact their own ancestor or once 
familiar friend." 

In regard to the belief that plants have souls, 
Mr. Tylor says : " Plants partaking with animals 
the phenomena of life and death, health and sick- 
ness, not unnaturally have some kind of soul 
ascribed to them. In fact, the notion of a vege- 
table soul, common to plants and to the higher 
organisms possessing an animal soul in addition, 
was familiar to mediaeval philosophy, and is not 
yet forgotten by naturalists." 

As souls were supposed to be the shadows and 
animated images of the body, inanimate objects, 
such as stones, weapons, household utensils, and, in 
fact, all objects, natural or artificial, were supposed 
to possess souls. To confirm this doctrine it is 
said that " the Fiji people can show you a sort of 
natural well, or deep hole in the ground, at one of 
their islands, across the bottom of which runs a 
stream of water, in which you may clearly per- 
ceive the souls of men and women, beasts and 
plants, of stocks and stones, canoes and houses, 



OF THE IMMORTAL SOUL. 193 

and of all the broken utensils of the frail world, 
swimming, or rather tumbling along one over the 
other pell mell into the region of immortality." 

"It appears to have been," Mr. Tylor says, 
"within systematic schools of civilized philosophy 
that the transcendental definitions of the immate- 
rial soul were obtained, by abstracting from the 
primitive conception of the ethereal-material soul, 
so as to reduce it from a physical to a metaphys- 
ical entity. ... As to the whole nature and action 
of apparitional souls, the lower philosophy escapes 
various difficulties which down to modern times 
have perplexed metaphysicians and theologians of 
the civilized world " (^Primitive Culture^ vol. I. pp. 
387-437, L. 1871). 

The only theory of soul and body existing in 
the lower stages of culture appears to have been a 
double materialism. " This," says Prof. Bain, " was 
within their grasp. An immaterial soul was en- 
tirely beyond their intellectual comprehension. 
Until Greek philosophy taught the world how to 
use and abuse abstract notions, Immaterialism was 
not an attainable phase of thought" (^Mind and 
Body, p. 143). 

A belief in the materiality of the soul was very 
generally held during the early centuries of the 
Christian era, as it was held essential to the Chris- 
tian doctrine of rewards and punishments that 
mind should be a corporeal substance, as matter 
only could be susceptible to physical pain and 
pleasure. 



194 THE OKIGIN OF THE DOCTEIKE 

Of Plato's theory Prof. Bain remarks : " It 
starts from his doctrine of eternal, self-existent 
Ideas or Forms which were anterior to what we 
call the universe, or the Kosmos. To the forma- 
tion of the Kosmos, there concurred two factors, — 
the Ideas and a co-eternal Chaos, or intermediate 
matter in discordant and irregular motion. A 
Divine Architect, or Demiurgus, on contemplat- 
ing the Ideas, made the world in conformity there- 
with, so far as the things of sense could be made 
to correspond with the eternal types. The Archi- 
tect had to contend with a pre-existing power, 
called Necessity, represented by the irregular mo- 
tions of the primitive chaos ; only up to a certain 
point could he control this Necessity, and make it 
give place to regularity. With such a difficulty to 
struggle against, the Demiurgus proceeds to con- 
struct or fabricate the Kosmos. In its totality this 
is a vast and comprehensive animated being ; the 
model for it is the Idea of Animal — the Self- 
Animal. . . . As created, the Kosmos is a scheme 
of rotary spheres, and has both a Soul and a Body. 
The Soul, rooted at the centre, and pervadiag the 
whole, is self-moving and the cause of movement 
in the Kosmical Body. The Kosmos, in its pe- 
ripheral or celestial regions, contains the gods ; 
in its central or lower regions of air, water, and 
earth, are placed men, quadrupeds, birds and fishes. 
From the Divine part of the Kosmos there was a 
gradual degeneracy in the creation of men and ani- 
mals. The human cranium was a little Kosmos, 



OF THE IMMORTAL SOUL. 195 

containiDg a rational and immortal soul,^ of adul- 
terated materials ; while in the body there are two 
inferior and mortal souls : the higher of the two 
situated in the chest, and manifesting Energy, 
courage, anger, &c. ; the lower placed in the abdo- 
men, and displaying appetite. The two lower 
souls are the disturbers of the higher rational soul, 
confusing its rotations, and perverting their harmo- 
nious properties. Yet notwithstanding its superior 
dignity, the soul is never detached from the body ; 
it has the corporeal properties of extension and 
movement ; and it is the moving power of the 
whole system" (^Mind and Body^ pp. 146-148). 

Plato's theory of the soul, which was the founda- 
tion of the modern doctrine of the immortal imma- 
terial soul, was borrowed from the Pagans of the 
East.2 " It is," says Dr. Priestley, " in fact the 
Oriental system itself, with very little variation ; 
no greater probably than might have been found 
in the East at the time he visited it." " The au- 

^ "When the dogma concerning the immortality of the soul 
spread from the school of Plato through Greece, it caused the 
greatest confusion, and induced a number of individuals dissat- 
isfied with their lot, to commit suicide" — Systeme de la Na- 
ture, vol. I. p. 280, note 78. 

2 "All the Pagans of the East," says Loubiere, "do truly 
believe, that there remains something of a man after his death, 
which subsists independently and separately from his body" — 
Quoted by Mr. Locke in Essays, vol. ii. p. 162. 

" Socrates calls the soul's immortality an ' old doctrine, long 
ago shadowed forth by the founders of the mysteries,' and 
appeals to antiquity in support of his own views of the spiritual, 
undying nature of the soul, against the scepticism of his age" 
— Human Destiny y p. 108, N.Y. 1862, Hudson. 



196 THE OHIGIN OF THE DOCTRIKE 

thority of Herodotus, the oldest Greek historian, 
and who himself travelled into Egypt, is very ex- 
press to this purpose. He says (ed. Steph. p. 137), 
' the Egyptians were the first who maintained that 
the soul of man is immortal, that when the body 
dies it enters into that of some other animal and 
when it has transmigrated through all terrestrial, 
marine, and flying animals, it returns to the body 
of man again. This revolution is completed in 
three thousand years.' He adds that several 
Greeks, whose names he would not mention, had 
published that doctrine as their own. 

" That the doctrine of tlie immortality of the soul 
was not of Grecian origin," ^ Dr. Priestley says, 
"may be concluded even without historical evi- 
dence (of which however there is abundance) from 
the circumstances of the thing ; it being always 
accompanied with other opinions which were cer- 
tainly of Oriental extraction. All the Philosophers 
who believed in the immortality of the soul be- 
lieved in its pre-existence, thinking it impossible 
that the soul should subsist after the body if it had 
not existed before it " (^Disquisitions^ pp. 208, 319, 
321). 

1 " It is expressly asserted by Aristotle and others," says Mr. 
Toland, "that the most ancient Greek philosophers did not 
dream of any principle, or actuating spirit in the universe itself, 
no more than in any of the parts thereof; but explained all the 
phenomena of nature by matter and local motion, levity and 
gravity, or the like; and rejected all that the poets said of- God, 
demons, souls, ghosts, heaven, hell, visions, prophecies, and 
miracles, &c., as fables invented at pleasure, and fictions to di- 
vert their readers" — Letters to Serena, p. 22. 



OF THE IMMORTAL SOUL. 197 

"Aristotle,"^ says Warburton, "thought of the 
soul like the rest, as we learn from a passage 
quoted by Cudworth, where, having spoken of the 
sensitive soul, and declared it to be mortal, he goes 
on in this manner. It remains that mind, or in- 
tellect (pre-existing), enter from without, and be 
only divine. But then he distinguishes again con- 
cerning this mind or intellect, and makes it two- 
fold, agent and patient, the former of which he 
concluded to be immortal, and the latter corrupti- 
ble " (^Divine Legation, vol. ii. p. 211). 

In commenting upon Aristotle's theory of the 
separate, immaterial, immortal soul, Prof. Bain 
says : " The climax is now reached ; logical con- 
sistency is abandoned ; and there is gained a 
transcendental starting-point for the Immaterial- 
ism of after ages " (vol. cit. p. 157). 

In this connection Dr. Priestley remarks : "That 
the leaven of this Oriental philosophy was mixed 
with Christianity at a very early period, even in 
the lives of the apostles, all antiquity and even 
their own writings sufficiently testify ; and it is 
far from being purged out even at this day." ^ 

1 "Newton's discovery of the true law of gravitation de- 
stroyed tlie philosophy of Aristotle which had dominated over 
two thousand years " — Dr. Kobert H. Collyer. 

2 Mr. Fearon remarks: "The history of the doctrine of the 
immortality of the soul is a history of the weakness and igno- 
rance of man." " Originating in periods of mental darkness 
and suited to the quackery of the Schools, to the cravings and 
the ignorance of man, and to the selfish interest of the Philoso- 
phers as well as the Priests, — it became, and still continues to 
be, formidable from authority and powerfully operative from 



198 THE ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE 

"On the first view of things, we are apt to wonder 
at the propensity of the primitive Christians, to 
adopt a system so utterly repugnant to their own. 
But it is not more extraordinary than the propen- 
sity of the Israelites to idolatry ; and both were 
deceived by very specious reasons which could not 
but appear specious in their circumstances. 

" The Oriental system, besides other flattering 
allurements, was wonderfully calculated to remove 
the two great objections that were in those times 
made to Christianity, and at which the minds of 
men most revolted, viz. the doctrine of a crucified 
man for the founder of their religion, and of a res- 
urrection from the dead. The former, we learn 
from the apostle Paul, was a great stumbling block 
both to Jews and Gentiles ; and at the latter, all 
the wise men of Greece absolutely laughed as a 
thing utterly incredible. 

" How ready, then, must those who were dazzled 
with the wisdom of this worlds more than with the 
true^ but hidden wisdom of God, have been to 
catch at the splendid doctrine of the emanation 
of souls from the divine mind, which was already 
received in the Gentile world, and to take that 
opportunity of advancing their Master, the too 
humble Jesus, to the high rank of the first and 
principal emanation of the Deity. 

age. But the history of our species forces the conchision, that 
all speculations upon man's condition and future hopes, when 
not derived from Eevelation, have been wild, extravagant, and 
generallj' immoral, — giving a sanction to practices tending to 
debase our nature, and to sink man to a low degree of ignorance 
and consequently of depravity" — vol. cit. pp. 2, 3. 



OF THE IMMORTAL SOUL. 199 

" More effectually to wipe away the reproach of 
the cross, and make their system more coherent, 
how natural was it to suppose, that this great 
Being did not really, but only in appearance, put 
on flesh, and, therefore, did not really suffer and 
die, but only seemed to do so. 

"Also, when the philosophers of that age sneered 
at the doctrine of a resurrection, with what pride 
would these weak Christians pretend to equal 
wisdom and refinement with themselves, by al- 
leging, that the true christian resurrection was 
not the resurrection of a vile body of flesh and blood, 
which could only be a burden to the soul, but 
either a mystical resurrection to a new life, or indi- 
cated the glorious time when the soul, being freed 
from all its impurities, would join its bright origi- 
nal, in a vehicle of light, a true spiritual body, and 
not that carnal one, which had been its punish- 
ment here. 

"Lastly, the doctrine of the impurity of matter 
has in all ages led to such mortifications and aus- 
terities as, requiring great resolution and forti- 
tude, have never failed to strike mankind with 
respect and reverence; giving an idea of an ex- 
traordinary degree of abstractedness from the 
world, and of greatness and elevation of soul." 

" That the doctrine of matter being the source 
of all evil, accords very ill with the christian doc- 
trine of the resurrection of the dead, cannot but be 
very evident to every person who reflects a mo- 
ment on the subject. In fact, they are diametric 



200 THE ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE 

cally opposite to one another. On the christian 
principles, our only hope is founded upon a resur- 
rection ; whereas, on the philosophical principles, 
a re-union to the body is a thing most of all to be 
dreaded. 

The opposition of these principles was so mani- 
fest, that all the first Christians, who adopted the 
foreign philosophy, absolutely denied, or explained 
away, the doctrine of a resurrection ; and though 
the authority of the apostles checked this extrava- 
gance, they were not able to prevent the mischief 
entirely; and even at this very day the advantage 
of the christian resurrection is, in general, rated 
very low ; and in the eye of reason it must appear 
an encumbrance upon the philosophical scheme." 

"Metaphysicians, who have conceived high no- 
tions of the dignity of immaterial substance^ and 
who have entertained a great contempt for every 
thing material,^ are much embarrassed when they 
consider the use of the body. The ancients, indeed, 
who imagined all souls to have pre-existed, and to 
have been sent into the bodies in which they are 
now confined as a punishment for offences com- 
mitted in their pre-existent state, found no diffi- 

1 The complaint, says Dr. Priestley, " of the evil tendency of 
matter is a hackneyed topic of declamation among all the an- 
cients. . . . The whole of this specious doctrine was evidently 
drawn from other sources than the system of Moses. He speaks 
of God himself as the maker of the terrestrial world, and of all 
things in it ; and, perhaps with an intended opposition to the 
principles of the other system, if it existed in his time, he par- 
ticularly says. And God saw every thing that he had made, and 
behold it was very good'^ (Gen. i. 31) — vol. cit. p. 390. 



OF THE IMMOETAL SOUL. 201 

cnlty in this case. The body is necessarily a elog^ 
and an impediment to the soul, and it was pro- 
vided for that very purpose. But the moderns, 
who have dropped the notion of pre-existence, and 
of offences committed prior to birth, and yet re- 
tain from that system the entire doctrine of the 
contagion of matter^ . . . must necessarily be ex- 
ceedingly embarrassed, when they connect with this 
mutilated TieathenisTi system the peculiar doctrines 
of Christianity " (vol. cit. pp. 326-329, 391, Qb). 

" Launching beyond the age of the apostles," 
continues Dr. Priestley, "we find ourselves in a 
wide sea of this vain philosophy^ partly of Grecian, 
and partly of immediate Oriental extraction, which, 
however, as has been seen, was ultimately the 
same thing. The most distinguished of the Chris- 
tian Fathers, as Justin Martyr, Clemens Alexan- 
drinus, Origen, &c., were deeply versed in this 
philosophy, and studiously covered the offence of 
the cross, by giving such an idea of the author of 
their religion, and the tenets of it, as was calcu- 
lated to strike the philosophical part of the world. 

"A principal source of the mixture of the Pla- 
tonic philosophy with Christianity was from the 
famous school of Alexandria, as will appear from 
the following general account of it in the Apology 
of Ben Mordeeai [Letter i. p. 105]. ' The school 
of Alexandria in Egypt, which was instituted by 
Ptolemy Philadelphus, renewed the old academy, 
or Platonic philosophy, and reformed it. — This 
school flourished most under Ammonius (the mas- 



202 THE OEIGIN OE THE DOCTRINE 

ter of Origen and Plotinus), who borrowed his 
choicest contemplations from the sacred scriptures, 
which he mixed with his Platonic philosophizings ; 
and it is disputed by Eusebius and Porphyry 
whether he died a Pagan or a Christian. He had 
great advantages, being bred up in the same school 
with Philo Judgeus. Besides this, there was in 
the town of Alexandria a famous church, settled 
by Mark the Evangelist, and the school was con- 
tinued by Pantsenus, Clemens Alexandrinus, &c., 
and after him successively by Origen, Heraclius, 
Dionysius, Arthenadore, Malchion, and Didymus, 
who reached the year 350, which doctors gave an 
admirable advance to the church. The town was 
for this reputed the universal school of the church, 
and the Platonic philosophy was in the highest 
authority among the Fathers. For it was the com- 
mon vogue that it differed little from Moses ; yea, 
Coelius Rhodius thinks that Plato differs little 
from Christ's placits. 

"Origen, scholar to Ammonius, though a pro- 
fessed Christian, followed his master's steps, mixing 
the Platonic philosophy and the doctrines of the 
gospel together; hoping thereby to gain credit to 
the christian religion ; and, with Clemens Alex- 
andrinus and others, made use of the Platonic and 
Pythagoric philosophy as a medium to illustrate 
the grand mysteries of faith, thereby to gain credit 
among those Platonic sophists. And F. Simon 
says, that the mixture of the Platonic philosophy 
with the christian religion, did not tend to the 



OF THE IMMOETAL SOUL. 203 

destruction of the orthodox faith, but more easily 
to persuade the Greeks to embrace Christianity. 
. . . 'In those days,' says Beaufobre, 'it was al- 
lowed tliat, with the fundamental doctrine of Chris- 
tianity, any person was at liberty to philosophize 
about the rest; and the nearer they could bring 
their religion to the established principles of phi- 
losophy, the more success they had.' But how 
dangerous a maxim was that ! It was, in fact, 
setting up their own wisdom against the wisdom 
of God himself. ... In these circumstances can 
it be any wonder that the pure religion of Christ 
got a tincture that would continue for ages " (vol. 
cit. pp. 341-347). 

Dr. Priestley says of the Greek philosophy, that 
" it was a system, which, though founded on noth- 
ing but imagination^ without a single fact or ap- 
pearance in nature to support it, has dazzled and 
captivated the philosophical part of the world 
from the earliest ages" (vol. cit. p. 299). 

"Notwithstanding," continues Dr. Priestley, 
" the very general spread ^ of this philosophical sys- 
tem, it is remarkable that the minds of the Jews 
were long uncontaminated with it. The doctrine 
of a revelation concerning a future life for man 
depends upon the resurrection of the dead, and 
has no other foundation whatever. No other 
ground of hope is so much as hinted at in any part 

1 Mr. Fearon tells us that the immortality of the soul was 
"fully recognized by all the religions of the ancient world 
except the Jewish "— Thoughts on Materialism, p. 122. 



204 THE OEIGEN" OF THE DOCTRINE 

of the Old or New Testament ; and tliough it is 
possible that some of the learned Pharisees in our 
Saviour's time might have been infected with 
other notions, borrowed from the Greeks, or from 
the East, they appear not to have been then 
known to the vulgar among the Jewish nation, as 
is sufficiently evident from the history of the death 
and resurrection of Lazarus. 

" From this valuable history, we find that Mar- 
tha, the sister of Lazarus, had no hope respecting 
her brother, but from the resurrection of the last 
day (John xi. 24), and our Lord gives her no con- 
solation but on the same ground. ' I am the resur- 
rection and the life.'' Had the notion of a separate 
soul^ released from the fetters of flesh, and enjoy- 
ing consummate happiness in another life, been 
known to them, and believed by them, it could 
not but have been uppermost in their minds ; and 
some mention of it, or some allusion to it, would 
certainly have been found in the history : whereas 
no such thing appears. 

" This belief of a resurrection, as the only foun- 
dation of a future life, evidently existing, and 
being universally recognized in the time of our 
Saviour, there can hardly be a doubt, but what it 
must have been the belief of the most early Jews 
and Patriarchs.^ And since the doctrine could 

1 Isaiah says: "Thy dead men shall live, together with 

my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing ye that dwell 

in dust ; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall 

cast out the dead" — Isa. xxvi. 19. 

Job says : "Oh that thou wouldst hide me in the grave, that 



OF THE IMMORTAL SOUL. 205 

never have been suggested by any appearance in 
nature, it must have been derived from some origi- 
nal revelation, probably prior to the flood " (vol. 
cit. pp. 300, 301). 

" Though a distinction," says Dr. Priestley, " is 
made in the scriptures between the principle, or 
seat of thought in man, and the parts which are 
destined to other functions ; and in the New Tes- 
tament that principle may sometimes be signified 
by the term soul^ yet there is no instance, either in 
the Old or New Testament, of this soul being 
supposed to be in one place and the body in an- 
other. They are always conceived to go together, 
so that the perceptive and thinking power could 
not, in fact, be considered by the sacred writers as 
any other than a property of a living man, and 
therefore as what ceased of course when the man 

thou wouldst keep me secret until thy wrath be past ; that thou 
wouldst appoint me a set time, and remember me. If a man 
die shall he live again ? All the days of my appointed time 
will I wait till my change come. Thou shalt call and I will 
answer thee : Thou wilt have a desire for the work of thine 
hands " — Job xiv. 13-15. 

Also " For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall 
stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though, after my 
skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God ; 
whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and 
not another, though my reins be consumed within me " — Job 
XIX, 25-27. 

David says : " As for me, I will behold thy face in righteous- 
ness : I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness" — 
Ps. xvn. 15. 

Among Jewish writers, Ben Levi maintains that the Jews 
were acquainted with the doctrine of the Eesurrectiou — Dis- 
sertation on the Prophecies, p. 171. 



206 THE ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE 

was dead, and could not be revived but with the 
revival of the body. 

" Accordingly, we have no promise of any re- 
ward, or any threatening of punishment, after 
death, but that which is represented as taking 
place at the general resurrection. And it is ob- 
servable that this is never, in the scriptures, called 
as with us, the resurrection of the body ^ (as if the 
soul in the mean time, was in some other place), 
but always the resurrection of the dead^ that is, of 
the man. If, therefore, there be any iyitermediate 
state^ in which the soul alone exists, conscious of 
any thing, there is an absolute silence concerning 
it in the scriptures ; death being always spoken 
of there as a state of rest, of silence, and of dark- 

1 The enemies of revelation have not failed to avail them- 
selves of the theory held by the immaterialists that the sa^ne 
identical flesh and blood from which the soul took its departure 
will be again animated at the resurrection, and have thus stated 
the difficulties with which the theory is attended: " The same 
piece of matter may happen to be a part of two or more bodies, 
as a fish feeding on a man and another man afterwards feeding 
on the fish, — part of the body of the first man becomes first 
incorporated with the fish, and afterwards in the fish with the 
last man. Instances have been known of one man feeding 
upon another; and when the substance of one man is thus con- 
verted into the substance of another, such cannot rise with his 
whole body ; — and to which shall the part in common belong ? " 
Whatever force these objections may have they are applicable 
only to those who contend for the resurrection of the same body. 
St. Paul says: "Now this I saj^, brethren, that flesh and blood 
cannot inherit the kingdom of God. ... It [the body] is sown 
a natural body ; it is raised a spiritual body. . . . As we have 
borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of 
the heavenly " — 1 Cor. xv. 44, 49, 50. 



OF THE IMMOETAL SOUL. 207 

ness, a place where the wicked cease from troubling^ 
but where the righteous cannot praise God,'''' ^ 

" How easy," says Dr. Priestley, " to get rid of 
all the embarrassment attending the doctrine of a 
soul, in every view of it, by admitting that the 
power of thinking belongs to the hrain of a man, 
as that of walking to his feet, or that of speaking 
to his tongue, that, therefore, man, who is one heing^ 
is composed of one kind of substance^ and when he 
dies, he, of course, ceases to think ; but when his 
sleeping dust shall be re-animated at the resurrec- 
tion, his power of thinking, and his consciousness, 
will be restored to him " {Disquisitions^ p. 102). 

That the immortality of the soul was a subject 
of dispute in the church as late as 1464, we learn 
from the accounts of the disputes on the subject 
in Rome. These disputes we are told afforded 
one pretence at least to Pope Paul II., to abolish 
the college of Abbreviators, and to persecute the 
members of it, of whom Platina was one, and the 
celebrated Pomponius Lsetus another. The pope 
objected to them that they disputed upon the im- 
mortality of the soul, and held Plato's opinion 
upon that subject, which Platina did not deny. 

Among the earlier events of the Reformation 
was Luther's protest against the decree of the im- 
mortality of the soul which had been made in a 
canon enacted in what " may be called the rump 
of the Lateran council," held under Leo X. in the 

* History of the Corruptions of Christianity, vol. i. pp. 230, 
231. 



208 THE ORIGIN OF THE DOCTEINE 

year 1513. This canon as published by Caranza 
is as follows : — 

"Whereas in these our days, some have dared 
to assert concerning the nature of the reasonable 
soul, that it is mortal, or one and the same in all 
men ; and some rashly philosophizing, declare this 
to be true, at least according to philosophy, we, 
with the approbation of the sacred council, do 
condemn and reprobate all those who assert that 
the intellectual soul is mortal, or one and the same 
in all men, and those who call these things in 
question ; seeing that the soul is not only truly, 
and of itself, and essentially the form of its human 
body, as is expressed in the canon of Pope Clem- 
ent v., published in the general council of Vienna ; 
but likewise immortal, and, according to the num- 
ber of bodies into which it is infused is singular- 
ly multipliable, multiplied, and to be multiplied. 
Which manifestly appears from the gospel, seeing 
that our Lord saith, tJiey cannot kill the soul : and 
elsewhere, he who hateth his soul in this worlds &c., 
and also because he promises eternal pain and 
eternal torments to those who are to be judged 
according to their merit in this life. Otherwise 
the incarnation, and other mysteries of Christ, 
would not profit us, nor were a resurrection to be 
expected; and the saints and righteous would, 
according to Paul, be most miserable of all men. 
And seeing that truth never contradicts truths we 
determine every assertion, which is contrary to 
revealed faith, to be false ; and we strictly inhibit 



OF THE IMMOETAL SOUL. 209 

all from dogmatizing otherwise, and we decree that 
all who adhere to the like erroneous assertions, 
shall be shunned and punished as heretics." ^ 

In the year 1520 Luther published a defence of 
his propositions condemned by a bull of Leo X. 
The 27th is as follows : " It is certain that it is not 
in the power of the church or the pope to estab- 
lish articles of faith, or laws for morals or good 
works." The reason he gives for this is, that 
these articles and laws are already established in 
the word of God; which he proves from 1 Cor. 
ni. 11. After which he goes on, "but I permit 
the pope to make articles of faith for himself and 
his faithful, such as, the bread and wine are tran- 
substantiated in the sacrament. The essence of Grod 
neither generates nor is generated. The soul is the 
substantial form of the human body. The pope is 
the emperor of the worlds and the king of heaven^ 
and Grod upon earth. The soul is immortal, 
with all those monstrous opinions to be found in 
the Roman dunghill of decretals, that such as his 
faith is, such may be his gospel, such his disciples, 
and such his church, that the mouth may have 
meat suitable for it and the dish a cover worthy 
of it." 

Luther, as is well known, espoused the doctrine 

1 *' Pomponatius, a philosopher of Mantua, not at all intimi- 
dated by the Lateran thunder, published a book in the year 
1516, on the immortality of the soul ; in which he exposed the 
futility of that argumentation by which the followers of Aris- 
totle had endeavored to prove the immortality of the soul " 
— Priestley's Disquisitions, p. 277. 



210 THE OEIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE 

of the sleep of the clead^ (until the resurrection) 
upon scripture authority, and made use of it as a 
confutation of purgatory and saint-worship, and 
continued in that belief to the last moment of his 
life. 

It was not many years before the doctrine of 
the separate existence of the soul began to creep 
into the public confessions of divers protestant 
churches, and consequently to be equally sacred 
among the reformed, as the canons of Clement and 
Leo had made it among the papists. 

The confession of the Protestant faith presented 
to the Emperor, Charles V., by the free cities of 
Strasburg, Constance, Niemmingen, and Lindau, 
contains nothing concerning the immortality of the 
soul. The confession presented to the Emperor 
in 1530, at the Diet of Augsburg, touches upon 
it very lightly, while the first Helvetic confes- 

1 In 1534, in the city of Orleans, " a ghost was conjured up " 
by the Franciscans, whicli played a number of pranks. Sleidan, 
who tells the story, proceeds to observe what excellent purposes 
of the ecclesiastical kind, were answered by these same spectres, 
particularly in supporting the doctrine of purgatory, encour- 
aging private masses, and bringing in large profits to the iDriests. 
** But," continues he, " after Luther's doctrine came to be under- 
stood, and had gained a little strength, this kind of spectres by 
degrees vanished away. For Luther teaches from the scriptures, 
that the souls of the dead are at rest, waiting for the final day of 
judgment; and that those disturbances, frightful noises and 
phantoms, are raised by satan, who loses no opportunity of con- 
firming men in the practice of impious rites, and the belief of 
false opinions, that he may render ineffectual the blessings con- 
ferred upon us by our Saviour Christ " — Sleidan Comment, L. 
IX. pp. 239-242. 



OF THE IMMORTAL SOUL. 211 

sion, exhibited at the convention of divines at 
Wittenberg in 1536 makes no mention of the 
separate soul. In 1551 confessions were prepared 
to be exhibited to the Council of Trent by divers 
churches, among them being one by the Duke of 
Wiirtemberg, and one by the churches of Saxony. 
The Wiirtembergers acknowledge the intercession 
of saints, while the Saxons speak of joining their 
prayers with "all saints in heaven and earth," but 
in another place affirm that the saints are dead 
and cannot hear the prayers of their votaries. 
When the harmonizers of the Protestant confes- 
sions, under the auspices of the Belgic and Galil- 
ean churches, undertook in the year 1581 to make 
all things smooth and consistent, they changed 
the intercession of the saints in heaven, to the Jioly 
desires of the saints, deeming that in this way 
only could the saints in heaven help sinners on 
earth. 

As yet nothing in any of these confessions for- 
mally condemned the doctrine of the sleep of the 
soul. The honor of first condemning such as 
dissented from the doctrines of Plato and Aris- 
totle which were derived, as we have seen, from 
the heathen nations of the East, was reserved for 
English reformers on the continent. They, in the 
fortieth of King Edward's articles presented in 
1552, confess themselves thus : — 

"They who say that the souls of such as depart 
hence do sleep, being without all sense, feeling and 
perceiving, until the day of judgment, or affirm 



212 THE ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE 

that all souls die with the bodies, and at the last 
day shall be raised up with the same, do utterly 
dissent from the right belief declared unto us in 
the holy scriptures." This article was however 
dropped in 1562 when Parker and his associates 
came to review the article. They had probably 
studied the scriptures more attentively than their 
predecessors. 

In the year 1566 the second Helvetic confession 
was published, being entirely on the Calvinistic 
plan. The following is a part of the seventh 
article : — 

"We hold that man consists of two, and these 
different substances in one person ; of an immortal 
soul, seeing that, being separate from the body, it 
neither sleeps nor dies ; and of a mortal body, 
which yet, at the last judgment, shall be raised 
from the dead, that the whole man from thence- 
forward may remain to eternity, either in life or 
death. We condemn all who scoff at the immor- 
tality of the soul, or bring it into doubt by 
subtle disputations, or who say that the soul 
sleeps, or, that it is a part of God." The Calvin- 
ists also believed with Clement and Leo, in the 
substantial form of the soul. 

When in the year 1611, the confession of the 
remonstrants appeared, the Calvinists censured 
it, and among other things for omitting to men- 
tion, the happy immortality of souls in heaven 
after this life, which, they say, is expressly deliv- 
ered in their catechism, and for this omission, the 



OF THE IMMOKTAL SOUL. 213 

remonstrants are accused of Socinianism. Episco- 
pius defends himself and his associates by observ- 
ing that "the judgments of the greatest divines 
had formerly, and still did vary, concerning the 
state of departed souls ; that the fathers seemed to 
be pretty well agreed, that no souls were admitted 
into paradise, till our Saviour by his death, opened 
the door and went in, with the penitent thief in 
his company ; that though all the fathers down to 
the end of the fourth century, judged that the 
souls of the faithful were received into paradise 
after our Lord had opened it, yet they were far 
from agreeing what or where this paradise was. 
Some understood that it meant Heaven^ others 
Hades^ not the place of torment but a common 
receptacle where the souls of the good and bad 
were reserved till the last judgment, for which he 
cites Lactantius, lib. Yii. cap. 21. — The Greek 
fathers, he says, were unanimous in their opinion, 
that the souls of the saints, did not enjoy the 
vision of God, nor were admitted into the fruition 
of glory, till the resurrection ; and that Calvin 
himself seems to have favored this notion, both in 
his Psychopannychia and in his institutions ; and 
lastly that the Socinians themselves acknowledge 
as much concerning the reception of souls into 
heaven, immediately after their departure from the 
body, as is expressed in the general words of their 
catechism," &;c. 

The Calvinists were grievously provoked and 

1 Bishop Blackburne's Works, iii. pp. 91, 92. 



214 THE ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE 

mortified by the reply of Episcopius,^ the truth of 
which they could not deny. " To show," says 
Bishop Blackburne, " that they went against the 
stream of the most orthodox fathers in their cate- 
chism, was bad enough. But that was a small 
matter in comparison of his putting it out of their 
power to fix Socinianism on the remonstrants, with- 
out stigmatizing their venerable master with the 
same brand-mark " (TFbr^s, vol. iii. p. 92). 

The doctrine of substantial forms so strenuously 
advocated by the papists and Calvinists, imported 
that natural bodies are made up of two substances, 
matter and form. That the form of all natural 
bodies, man only excepted, is a corruptible being^ 
which never fails to be destroyed, when the com- 
pound perishes, that is, whenever a stone, or a tree, 
or a dog are converted into natural bodies of 
another species. 

"It was observed," says Bishop Blackburne, 
"that they who followed this system, could give 
no proofs of the immortality of the soul; for in 
order to t^iat, they should make it appear that the 
soul is immaterial; which the very notion of its 
being the substantial or essential form of a mate- 
rial body, would not admit of. 

1 " The orthodoxy of Episcopius was called in question by his 
theological opponents; and the rage of the Calvinistic party 
went so far as to threaten violence. In 1614 he went to Am- 
sterdam to attend a baptism, and the minister, Heyden, having 
stigmatized him as a heretic, he was saved from stoning only 
by the zeal of his friends" — McClintock & Strong's Cyclo- 
pcedia. 



OF THE IMMORTAL SOUL. 215 

"• The scholastic hypothesis indeed, was thus 
effectually overthrown, but the church could not 
spare the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, 
or its conscious existence in a separate state, and 
they who had sense enough to demolish the hy- 
pothesis of Aristotle and Aquinas, never attempted 
to find out another that would answer the same 
purpose. 

"This honor was reserved for Descartes whose 
Meditations appeared in the year 1640. The sum 
of his system is ' that all thinking substances 
are distinct from matter, from whence it necessa- 
rily follows, that the soul of man is a spirit, or a 
simple indivisible being and consequently immor- 
tal.' Hence it followed again, that a substantial 
form, being co-extended with the body, to which 
it belonged, and consequently divisible, must be 
incapable of thinking.^ 

" The doctrine of Descartes was immediately 
controverted by the great Gassandi, who main- 
tained, ' that though it may be granted that mind 
and body may be conceived apart, it would not 
follow that they are two distinct substances, and,"" 
he says, ' Descartes neither has proved, nor can 
prove from reason (for he grants the fact in com- 
pliment to the church), that thought and exten- 
sion may not go together, constituting one being 
or composition, and that all Descartes ' pretended 

^ The inquisitors at Rome put Descartes' book into their 
index expurgatorius. An immaterial soul could not suffer in 
their purgatory. 



216 THE ORIGIN OF THE DOCTKINB 

demonstrations, are mere affirmations, and petiti- 
ones principW^ (vol. cit. ill. p. 118). 

William Tj-ndall, the author of the first printed 
edition of the Bible in English, observes : " And 
ye in putting them [souls] in heaven, hell, and pur- 
gatory, destroy the argumentes wherewith Christ 
and Paul prove the resurrection. What God doth 
with them, that shall we know when we come to 
them. The true faith putteth the resurrection, 
which we be warned to looke for every houre. 
The heathen philosophers denying that, did put 
that the souls did ever lyve. And the pope joineth 
the spiritual doctrine of Christ, and the fleshly 
doctrine of philosophers, together, things so con- 
trary that they cannot agree, no more than the 
sperite and the fleshe do in a christen man. And 
because the fleshly minded pope consenteth unto 
heathen doctrine, therefore he corrupteth the scrip- 
ture to establish it. . . . If the soules be in heaven, 
tell me why they be not in as good case as the 
angels be ? And then what cause is there of the 
resurrection ? " ^ 

In regard to the belief of an immortal soul in 
connection with the resurrection of the dead. Dr. 
Priestley remarks : " It seems, however, that when 
the Christian, after having long struggled and 
maintained a very unequal combat in its present 
state of confinement, in which his soul can have 

1 Quoted from Tyndall's Defence of Luther in answer to 
Thomas More the Platonist, by Bishop Blackburne, Works, 
vol. III. p. QQ. 



OF THE IMMOETAL SOUL. 217 

little or no use of its native powers and faculties, 
has, by the benevolent constitution of nature got 
rid of this encumbrance of clay^ these fetters of mat- 
ter^ and this dreadful contagion of flesh and hlood^ 
and with all the privileges, and with all the powers 
of action and enjoyment, naturally belonging to an 
unembodied spirit^ has ranged the region of em- 
pyrean for some thousands of years, these powers 
are to be again clogged and impeded by a second 
union to matter^ though better tempered than be- 
fore, and, therefore a less, though a real and 
necessary encumbrance. And what is most ex- 
traordinary in the case is, that this second degra- 
dation takes place at a period which Christianity 
points out to us as the great jubilee of the virtu- 
ous and the good, when (all mankhid being judged 
according to their works) they shall receive the 
plaudit of their judge, and shall enter upon the 
inheritance of a kingdom prepared for them from 
the foundation of the world; at which time and not 
before, they are to be admitted to be for ever ivith 
the Lord Jesus Christ'''' (^Disquisitions^ p. 67). 

Dr. Maudsley says: "Whosoever believes sin- 
cerely in the doctrine of the resurrection of the 
body as taught by the Apostle Paul, which all 
Christians profess to do, must surely have some 
difficulty in conceiving the immortality of the soul 
apart from that of the body ; for, if the Apostle's 
preaching and the Christian's faith be not vain, 
and the body do rise again, then it may be pre- 
sumed that the soul and it will share a common 



218 THE ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE 

immortalitv, as tliey have shared a common mor- 
tality. So far, then, from materialism being the 
negation of immortality, the greatest of the apos- 
tles, the great Apostle to the Gentiles, earnestly 
preached materialism as essential to the life which 
is to come " {Body and Mind^ pp. 260, 261). 

St. Paul says : " Now if Christ be preached that 
he rose from the dead, how say some among you 
that there is no resurrection of the dead ? But if 
there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ 
not risen : and if Christ be not risen, then is our 
preaching vain. Yea, and we are found false wit- 
nesses of God, because we have testified of God 
that he raised up Christ : whom he raised not up, 
if so be that the dead rise not . . . then they also 
which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished"^ 
(1 Cor. XV. 12-18). 

"Admit the force of the Apostle's argument," 
says Mr. Fearon, " and the doctrine of the materi- 
ality of man follows as an inevitable consequence : 
for . . . death and resurrection are terms opposed 
to each other ; a real resurrection must be preceded 
by an actual death ; that which does not die, can- 
not be raised from the dead ; the resurrection 
made known in the Scriptures is a resurrection 
from the dead.^ This view of future existence 

1 Here the Apostle Paul makes the future happiness of all 
Christians to depend upon a single matter of fact, the resurrec- 
tion of Jesus Christ. 

2 See " The Besurrection from the Bead an Essential Doc- 
trine of the Gospel,'' by K. Wright, p. 6, 1820. 



OF THE IMMORTAL SOUL. 219 

will be seen directly to emanate from the declara- 
tions of Jesus, as well as from the teaching of his 
Apostles ; it having been announced as ' the will 
of him that sent me, that every one that seeth the 
Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting 
life ; and I will raise him up at the last day.^ And 
he who from right principles could give entertain- 
ment to others, is told to 'call the poor, the 
maimed, the lame, the blind: and thou shalt be 
blessed; for they cannot recompense thee — thou 
shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the 
just.'' 2 Thus, the will of him that sent the Mes- 
siah was to make known to the world 'everlasting 
life ; ' a life, from the very terms of the communi- 
cation, not derivable from a self-existent, immate- 
rial principle ; but from the 'resurrection from the 
dead,' when all that are in their graves shall come 
forth to the resurrection of life, or to that of con- 
demnation. It was for proclaiming this doctrine, 
and that too in defiance of both Jewish and Hea- 
then authorities, and even of martyrdom itself, 
on the part of the Apostles, that the ' priests, and 
the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came 
upon them ; being grieved that they taught the 
people, and preached through Jesus (not the 
immortality of the soul) the resurrection from 
the deacV'^ (vol. cit. pp. 106, 107). 

St. Paul says to the Thessalonians : " But I 
would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, con- 
cerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, 

1 John VI. 4S. 2 Luke xiii. 13, 16. » Acts iv. 1, 2. 



220 THE OmGIN OF THE DOCTRIKE 

even as others which have no hope. For if we 
believe that Jesns died and rose again, even so 
them also w^hicli sleep in Jesus will God bring with 
him. For this we say unto you by the word of 
the Lord, that v/e which are alive and remain unto 
the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them 
which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall de- 
scend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of 
the archangel, and with the trump of God ; and 
the dead in Christ shall rise first : then we which 
are alive and remain shall be caught up together 
with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the 
air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. 
Wherefore comfort one another with these words " 
(1 Thess. IV. 13-18). 

Mr. Fearon says in this connection : " Upon the 
supposition of all being animated by an immate- 
rial principle, how or why should the Apostle, 
when expressly treating of a future state, and the 
hopes consequent upon its belief, have omitted all 
reference thereto ? And, upon the same hypothe- 
sis why should the Thessalonians 'sorrow ' ? — why 
should they have ' no hope ' ? for, whether Jesus 
had ' risen again ' or not, that fact could neither 
retard nor accelerate the future life of immortal 
souls. Bat in addition, the Apostle concludes a 
portion of his argument to the Corinthians, with a 
remark which should put this question beyond all 
controversy; for, 'if Christ be not raised, your 
faith is vain, 3^e are yet in your sins. Then they 
also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished / 



OF THE IMMORTAL SOUL. 221 

If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are 
of all men most miserable ' " (vol. cit. p. 108). 

Of the argument pursued by Paul to convince 
those in the Corinthian church who were sceptical 
as to a future state, Mr. Fearon says r " It is of 
great importance ; seeing, that whilst he does not 
even glance at the theories of the Immaterialists, 
yet, had his argument been expressly shaped for 
the purpose of overthrowing their doctrines, it 
could not have been more successful ; and while 
the certainty of futurity is maintained, some of 
the particular characteristics thereof are also 
treated upon, by which means the Apostle thus 
presents a connected view of the whole subject ; 
for ' now is Christ risen from the dead, and become 
the first fruits of them that slept ; ' the first fruits 
in the Mosaic law ^ being the first ripe corn gath- 
ered from the rest, such being the earnest and 
pledge of the future harvest ; a figure as applied 
to a future state of existence, illustrative of the 
situation occupied by Jesus relatively towards 
others. ' But every man in his own order : Christ 
the first fruits ; afterwards they that are Christ's 
at his coming. . . . 

' Behold, I show you a mystery ; we shall not all 
sleep, but we shall all be changed ; for the dead 
(not the immortal souls) shall he raised incorrupti- 
ble, and we shall be changed ; for this corruptible 
must put on incorruption, and this mortal must 
put on immortality,' then shall be brought to pass 
* Lev. XXIII. 10. 



222 THE ORIGIN OF THE DOCTEINE 

the saying that is written, 'death is swallowed 
up in victory.' Need it be here pointed out that 
that which is immaterial cannot be corruptible, that 
that which is immortal can neither be called upon 
' to put on ' immortality, nor can it become mortal ; 
that the future existence of a being inherently im- 
mortal, could neither be 'a mystery,' nor 'a vic- 
tory,' neither could it excite unexpected exulta- 
tion ; and the grand climax of the Apostle, ' O 
death ! where is thy sting ? O grave ! where is thy 
victory?' would have been a satire upon the 
understanding of those to whom he wrote, and 
could not have failed to have furnished his ene- 
mies with a triumphant weapon against himself; 
for in the language of Archdeacon Blackburn, ' of 
what consequence is it, if they have immortal life 
by nature, whether they have it by promise or 
not? What does it signify, whether they have 
hopes of a resurrection or not, if they are sure of 
a future life by provision and allotment, without 
a resurrection?' " (vol. cit. pp. 117, 121). 

Bishop Blackburne remarks : " The more any 
one is convinced of the immortality of the soul 
from the principles of Aristotle and Descartes, 
the less will he concern himself about the Gospel 
account of futurity " ( Works, vol. iii. p. 121, Camb. 
1804). 

In reference to the text, "There is no work, 
nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the 
grave whither thou goest," Luther remarks: "An- 
other proof that the dead are insensible. Solomon 



OF THE IMMORTAL SOUL. 223 

thinks, therefore, that the dead are altogether 
asleep^ and think of nothing. They lie, not reck- 
oning days or years, but when awakened will seem 
to themselves to have slept scarcely a moment " 
{Belt and Grace^ p. 258). 

Lactantius, "the Christian Cicero" (about A.D. 
300), says : "There would be no difference between 
the just and the unjust, if every man that is born 
were made immortal. Immortality, therefore, is 
not a law of our own nature, but the wages and 
reward of virtue " (^Insti. Div. i. 7, c. 5). 

Bishop Blackburne remarks : " All these fine- 
spun notions of the immortality of the soul, and 
all the artificial deductions from that principle, 
teach nothing but the art of blowing scholastic 
bubbles, which will certainly go peaceably to their 
rest, without the least detriment, either to sound 
learning or true rehgion " (Quoted by Mr. Fearon 
in Thoughts on Materialism^ p. 62). 

Mr. George Rawlinson, M.A., late fellow and 
tutor of Oxford University, in commenting upon 
the amount of evidence furnished by the Catacombs 
of Rome with respect to the belief of the early 
Christians in the resurrection of the dead, remarks: 
"The doctrine of the resurrection is implied or 
expressed on almost every tombstone which has 
been discovered" (Bampton Lectures at Oxford, 
1859, p. 286). 

The universal desire for immortality is thought 
by the immaterialsts to be a powerful argument in 
favor of its gratification. Mr. Fearon comments 



224 DOCTRINE OF THE nHSIORTAL SOUL. 

upon the fact that the desire for riches and power 
may be said to be universal, yet furnishes anything 
rather than a rational and confident assurance of 
gratification. Also the desire that is cherished 
alike by the peasant and the philosopher, by the 
king and the beggar, and yet never has been grati- 
fied — the desire for a longer continuance of life 
than that generally allotted to man. Mr. Fearon 
thinks if the claim of the immaterialists were a 
just one, man would not require futurity, as he 
could by his desire insure to himself immortality 
in the present state of things (vol. cit. p. 25). 



CHAPTER VI. 

BIBLE PKOOF OF THE SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 

That the Bible does not teach that man was 
created with an immaterial, immortal soul, we learn 
from the account of his creation in Genesis (ii. 7). 

" And the Lord God formed man of the dust of 
the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the 
breath of life, and man became a living soul " 
[Hebrew, nephesh chaiya\ soul living, or living 
soul, as it is rendered in English]. 

From this verse we learn that the wliole man 
was made of the dust of the ground, as it is not 
intimated that any part of him had a higher or 
different origin. When the whole man was com- 
pletely formed, we are told that God made the 
man to breathe and live. It is perfectly evident 
from the text that nothing but the circumstance of 
hreathing made the difference between the unani- 
mated earth and the living soul. St. Paul says : 
" The first man Adam was made a living soul ; " 
" the first man is of the earth earthy " (1 Cor. XV. 
45, 47). 

Dr. Kitto renders Gen. ii. 7, as follows : — 

" And Jehovah God formed the man [Heb. the 

225 



226 BIBLE PROOF OF THE 

Adam] dust from the ground, and blew into his 
nostrils the breath of life and man became a living 
animal." In regard to an immaterial immortal 
spirit Dr. Kitto observes : " We should be acting 
unfaithfully if we were to affirm its being con- 
tained or implied in this passage " QCyclopoedia of 
Bihlieal Literature). 

The term breath of life is also applied to animals 
equally with man : " And behold, I, even I, do 
bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy 
all things wherein is the breath of life under 
heaven ; and every thing that is in the earth shall 
die " (Gen. yi. 17). 

" And then went in unto Noah, into the ark, two 
and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life '* 
(Gen. vn. 15). 

" All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, 
that was in the dry land died " (Gen. vii. 22). 
Mr. Hudson tells us that the literal translation of 
the preceding verse is : " All in whose nostrils was 
the breath of the spirit of lives [nishmath ruach 
chajiri] died " {Suman Destiny., p. 64). 

If Adam was created with an immortal soul, then 
all animals and creeping things were created with 
immortal souls, as the term nephesh chaiyah (living 
soul) is applied to animals equally with man. 

That Adam was not created immortal, we have 
conclusive proof in the following verse : " And the 
Lord God said. Behold, the man has become as one 
of us, to know good from evil : and now, lest he put 
forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and 



SIKGLE-SITBSTANCE THEORY. 227 

eat and live forever : therefore the Lord God sent 
him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the 
ground from whence he was taken " (Gen. iii. 
22, 23). 

We also read : " In the sweat of thy face shalt 
thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground ; 
for out of it wast thou taken : for dust thou art 
and unto dust shalt thou return" ^ (Gen. ill. 19). 
If Adam was created with an immortal soul, which 
is the real man, the body being only the senseless 
instrument of the soul, as taught by theologians, 
the Creator was talking to the senseless instrument 
of the soul in this passage, and the sentence of 
death passed upon Adam was simply a decree 
against the insensible instrument, the material 
body, of the real man Adam, and the serpent was 
right when he said to Eve, " Ye shall not surely 
die " (Gen. m. 4). 

The writers of the Old Testament did not un- 
derstand that man possesses an immortal soul. 
David says of man : " His breath goeth forth, he 
returneth to his earth; in that very day his 
thoughts perish." Also, " Thou hidest thy face, 
they are troubled ; thou takest away their breath, 
they die, and return to their dust." And again, 

1 Bishop Law, in commenting upon this decree, observes: 
"Nor can we well conceive the unhappy subjects of it to have 
been at that time so very ingenious, as to explain it all away by 
distinguishing upon the different parts of their constitution; 
and so concluding that by death no more was intended than 
only limng in some different manner, or a continuation of their 
consciousness and real existence in some other place. No; that 
■was the philosophy of after ages" — Theory of Beligion, p. 338. 



228 BIBLE PKOOF OF THE 

" For in death there is no remembrance of thee : 
in the grave who shall give thee thanks ? " (Ps. 
cxLVi. 4 ; CIV. 22 ; vi. 5.) 

Solomon says : " For the living know that they 
shall die : but the dead know not anything." 
" Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with 
thy might ; for there is no work, nor device, nor 
knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave whither thou 
goest" (Eccles. ix. 4, 10). 

Job asks : " Shall mortal man be more just than 
God?" (Job IV. 170 

The writers of the New Testament agree with 
the writers of the Old Testament in teaching that 
man is mortal. St. Paul says : " For this corrupti- 
ble must put on incorruption, and this mortal must 
put on immortality " (1 Cor. xv. 53). St. Paul 
tells us that God will give eternal life to those 
" who by patient continuance in well doing seek for 
honor and immortality" (Rom. ii. 7). If man is 
immortal, why is he to be rewarded for seeking im- 
mortality ? Indeed, St. Paul distinctly states that 
God only hath immortality (1 Tim. vi. 16). The 
word immortal occurs but once in the Bible, and 
is then applied to God (see 1 Tim. i. 17). 

Peter seems not to have been aware of the fact 
that souls have a conscious existence separate from 
the body, for he says : " Men and brethren, let me 
freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that 
he is both dead and buried ... for David is not 
ascended into the heavens " (Acts n. 29-34). Also, 
" For David, after he had served his own genera- 



SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 229 

tion by the will of God fell on sleep, and saw cor- 
ruption " (Acts XIII. 36). 

The Hebrew word nephesh,^ which is rendered 
soul, occurs seven hundred and fifty-two times in 
the Old Testament, and in the common English 
version is rendered in forty-four different ways ; ^ 
viz., man, men, him, he, himself, me, myself, we, 
her, herself, thee, thyself, they, themselves, your- 
selves, any, one, lust, ghost, thing, his own, she 
will, mortally, will, tablets, the dead, fellows, dis- 
contented, greedy, breath, deadly, hearty, appetite, 
pleasure, fish, desire, mind, heart, creature, beast, 
body, life and lives, person, and soul. 

Hebrew nouns are derived from Hebrew verbs, 
and nephesh is from a verb which signifies "to 
breathe," " to respire." Roy, in his lexicon, renders 
nephesh as follows: "the soul," "vital part," "a 
man," a " creature," " affection," " person," " sub- 
stance." 

The word nephesh is first applied in the Bible to 
beasts. " Let the water bring forth abundantly 
the moving creature that hath life " [nephesh chai- 
yah'], margin, living soul. "And God created 
great whales and every living creature [nephesh 
chaiyah, living soul] that moveth, which the 
waters brought forth abundantly." "And God 

1 There are two other words that are rendered soul in the 
Old Testament. N'shamah, which is usually rendered breath, 
is rendered soul in Isa. lvii. 16. N'deevah, which means liber- 
ality, excellence, is rendered soul in Job xxx. 15. 

2 For the passages see The Soul : What is It 9 (Rev. Miles 
Grant), from which this is taken. 



230 BIBLE PROOF OF THE 

said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature 
[nephesh chaiyaJi^ living soul] after his kind, cat- 
tle, and creeping things, and beast of the earth 
after his kind." 

" And to every beast of the earth, and to every 
fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth 
upon the earth, wherein is life [nephesh chaiyah^ 
living soul], I have given every green herb for 
meat." '' And the Lord God formed man of the 
dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils 
the breath of life, and man became a living soul " ^ 
[nephesh chaiyah']. 

We see from these passages that our English 
translators have rendered the Hebrew words, neph- 
esh chaiyah, living soul, when applied to man, but 
have refrained from rendering the same words liv- 
ing soul when applied to beasts. Dr. Clarke, in 
commenting upon nephesh ehaiyah, says : " It is a 
general term to express all creatures endowed with 
life in any of its varied gradations." 

Parkhurst, an eminent Hebrew lexicographer, 
says : " As a noun nephesh hath been supposed to 
signify the spiritual part of man, or what we com- 
monly call his soul ; I must for myself confess that 
I can find no passage where it hath undoubtedly 
this meaning." 

McCuUock says : " There is no word in the He- 
brew language that signifies either soul or spirit, 
in the technical sense in which we use the terms 

1 Gen. I. 20, 21, 24, 30 ; ii. 7. 



SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 231 

as signifying something distinct from the body " 
{Credibility of the Scriptures^ vol. I. p. 471). 

Gibbon observes : " The doctrine of the immor- 
tality of the soul is omitted in the Law of Moses " 
{Works, vol. I. p. 530). 

In Cruden^s Concordance, an orthodox authority, 
we are told that the word " soul " in Scripture, 
" especially in the style of the Hebrews, is very 
equivocal" (Article Soul). 

Psyche^ the Greek word which is rendered soul 
in the New Testament, is rendered in seven differ- 
ent ways ; viz., life and lives, wind, you, heart, 
us, heartily, and soul. 

As nephesh is used primarily to express the 
whole being, in the Old Testament, psyche is like- 
wise used in the same sense in the New Testament. 
" Then they that gladly received his word were 
baptized, and the same day there were added unto 
them about three thousand souls " \_psyche'] (Acts 
II. 41). " And fear came upon every soul " 
\_psyche'] (Acts ii. 43). ''And it shall come to 
pass that every soul \_psyche'] that will not hear 
that prophet, shall be destroyed from among his 
people " (Acts ni. 23). "Then sent Joseph, and 
called his father Jacob to him, and all his kindred, 
threescore and fifteen souls " \_psyehe'] (Acts Yii. 
14). " We were in all in the ship two hundred 
threescore and fifteen souls " [psychel (Acts xxvii. 
37). " I will very gladly spend and be spent for 
you " [psyche'] (2 Cor. xii. 15). "How long dost 
thou make us [psyche] to doubt ? " (John x. 24.) 



232 BIBLE PROOF OF THE 

jRuacJi^ the Hebrew word which is rendered 
spirit^ in our translation, occurs four hundred 
times in the Old Testament, and is rendered in 
twenty-two different ways; viz., blast, quarters, 
anger, mind, courage, vain, side, breath, cool, tem- 
pest, spiritual, air, windy, whirlwind, smell, smell- 
eth, smelled, understanding, accept, toucheth, wind, 
and spirit, which occurs two hundred and forty 
times.2 

The general uses of the word ruacTi are to de- 
note a being ; an influence proceeding from a 
being ; a state of mind or feeling ; and the atmos- 
phere which is generally called the "breath of 
life." 

The following are some of the passages in which 
ruach is rendered in other words beside spirit. 

" The blast of the breath [ruacli] of his nos- 
trils " (2 Sam. XXII. 16). " By the breath [ruach'] 
of his nostrils are they consumed " (Job iv. 9). 
" He will not suffer me to take my breath [ruach'], 
but filleth me with bitterness" (Job ix. 18). 
" The flame shall dry up his branches ; and by the 
breath [ruach] of his mouth shall he go away " 
(Job XX. 30). "My breath [ruach] is corrupt" 
(Job XVII. 1). " By the word of the Lord were 
the heavens made, and all the host of them by the 
breath [ruach] of his mouth" (Ps. xxxiii. 6). 

1 The Hebrew word n^shah-mah, usually rendered breath, is 
twice rendered spirit in the Old Testament; first, in Gen. ii. 7, 
second, in Job xxxi. 4 — The Spirit in Man, Rev. Miles Grant. 

2 For the passages in the Old Testament in which ruach is 
rendered in other words beside spirit, see The Spirit in Man. 



SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEOHY. 233 

*'^ And there went forth a wind [ruacTi] from the 
Lord" (Num. xi. 31). "The heaven was black 
with clouds and wind [ruacK]^ and there was a 
great rain " (1 Kings xviii. 45). " In four quar- 
ters [ruacK] were the porters, toward the east, 
west, north and south " (1 Chron. ix. 24). " Their 
anger [ruacK] was abated towards him when he 
said that " (Judg. viii. 3). " Which were a grief of 
mind [ruacK] unto Isaac and to Rebekah" (Gen. 
XXVI. 35). " Then shall his mind [ruacli] change, 
and he shall pass over" (Hab. i. 11). "Shall vain 
IruacK] words have an end " (Job xvi. 3). " He 
sayeth among the trumpets, ha, ha ; and he smell- 
eth [ruacK] the battle afar off " (Job xxxix. 25). 

Pneuma^ the Greek word which is rendered 
spirit in the New Testament, is rendered in six 
different ways; viz., spirit, spiritual, spiritually, 
ghost, life, wind. 

Pneuma is from pneo^ " to blow, breath, of the 
wind and air." 2. " To breathe, send forth an 
odor," " to breathe or smell of a thing." 3. " Of 
animals, to breathe hard, pant, gasp." 4. " Gener- 
ally, to draw breath, breathe, and so to live " (Lid- 
dell and Scott). 

Mr. Tylor observes: "Terms corresponding 
with those of life, mind, soul, spirit, ghost, and so 
forth, are not thought of as describing really sepa- 
rate entities, so much as the several forms and 

^ Pneuma is the only word that is rendered spirit in the New 
Testament, with the exception of the word phantasmay which 
occurs in Matt. xii. 26, and in Mark vi. 49. 



234 BIBLE PEOOF OF THE 

functions of an individual being. Thus the con- 
fusion which here prevails in our own thought and 
language, in a manner typical of the thought and 
language of mankind in general, is in fact due not 
merely to vagueness of terms, but to an ancient 
theory of substantial unity that underlies them." 

" The act of breathing so characteristic of the 
higher animals during life, and coinciding so 
closely with life in its departure, has been repeat- 
edly and naturally identified with the life or soul 
itself. Laura Bridgman showed in her instructive 
way the analogy between the effects of restricted 
sense and restricted civilization when one day she 
made the gesture of taking something away from 
her mouth : ' I dreamed,' she explained in words, 
' that God took away my breath to heaven.' " 

" The conception of the soul as breath may be 
followed up through Semitic and Aryan etymol- 
ogy, and thus into the main streams of the philoso- 
phy of the world. Hebrew shows nephesJi^ ' breath,' 
passing into all the meanings of ' life, soul, mind, 
animal,' while ruacJi and neshamah make the like 
transition from ' breath ' to ' spirit,' and to these the 
Arabic nefs and ruh correspond. The same is the 
history of Sanscrit dtman and prdna^ of Greek 
'psyche and pneuma^ of Latin animus^ anima, spir- 
itus. So Slavonic duch has developed the mean- 
ing of ' breath ' into that of soul or spirit ; and the 
dialects of the Gypsies have this word duk,^ with 
the meanings of 'breath, spirit, ghost.' . . . Ger- 
man geist and English ghost, too, may possibly 



SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 235 

have tlie same original sense of ' breath.' ... It 
is thus that West Australians used one word wang 
for ' breath, spirit, and soul ; ' that in the Netela 
language of California pints means 'life, breath, 
soul ; ' that certain Greenlanders reckoned two 
souls to man, namely his shadow and his breath ; 
that the Malays say the soul of the dying man 
escapes through his nostrils, and in Java use the 
same word nawa for ' breath, life, soul ' " (vol. cit. 
vol. I. pp. 390-393). 

Bishop Tillotson says: "The immortality of 
the soul is rather supposed or taken for granted in 
the Bible " (^Sermons^ vol. n.). 

Richard Watson admits that the doctrine of the 
natural immortality of the soul is contradicted by 
Scripture (^Institutes ^ ii. 83). 

" He [Satan] assumed most fully that the death 
threatened [in Gen. ii. 17] would be a form of 
existence. The devil could not hope to be be- 
lieved if he had given that word the sense of 
annihilation " (Oberlin Evangelist^ June 19, 1861). 

" The Bible generally assumes the immortality 
of the soul, as it does the existence of God " (^The 
Presbyterian Quarterly^ 1869, p. 600). 

" The intuitional persuasion ... we know that 
the soul is immortal, as we know there is a God." 
" The whole projection of a rational being assumes 
the fact of its inherent immortality" (The Boston 
Review, 1861, pp. 446, 452). 

Dr. Proudfit says: "The best and highest of 
revelations . . . announces not an immortal soul 



236 BIBLE PEOOF OF THE 

(that is everywhere taken for granted in the New 
Testament) but an immortal man" QBibliotheca 
Sacra, 1858, p. 804). 

" The doctrine," says A. Vinet, " of the exist- 
ence of God and the immortality of the soul are 
everywhere taken for granted in his [Christ's] 
words, but are never proved " (A Characteristic of 
the G-ospeV). 

" Christ's teachings presuppose monotheism and 
immortality" (^The American Theological Review^ 
1862, p. 180). 

Mr. Hudson observes: "Did Christ assume as 
already known that which he came to bring to 
light?" 

"The existence of God, while assumed as too 
clear for doubt, is named, spoken of, alluded to, 
and otherwise explicitly assumed, in many hun- 
dreds of scriptural expressions. But the immor- 
tality in question, if assumed, is never at all allud- 
ed to, but is treated with utter and profound 
silence. This difference cannot be explained by 
supposing the immortality of man so much clearer 
than the divine existence; for the former has been 
far more doubted by mankind than the latter. 
Nor is the difference due to the higher importance 
of the doctrine of God's existence ; for though the 
being of a God is of more account to the universe 
than the immortality of man, yet to man himself \t 
is not more important. And the Bible is given 
not to the universe at large, but as a special reve- 
lation to mankind, to instruct them in their duties 



SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 237 

and destinies. Given to bring life and immortal- 
ity to light" QThe Rights or Wrongs? p. 9). 

Prof. Ives of Yale College remarks: "Immor- 
tality as an essential attribute of the soul, is not 
only nowhere affirmed in the Bible, as theologians 
confess, but is in fact positively denied." " The 
soul is not an immaterial, immortal part of human 
beings " " but is the proper oeganism, of all ani- 
mated [Latin, anima, soul] beings, whether human 
or animal, while spirit, likewise a common attri- 
bute of man and animals, is the vital peinciple, 
denominated also in the Bible the breath of life." 
" While this spirit is infused into the organism, or 
soul, the man, or animal, is a living soul ; when the 
spirit is taken away the same becomes a dead soul " 
(^The Bible Doctrine of the Soul^ p. 73). 

It is very evident that the scriptures have been 
made, by the English translators, to teach errone- 
ous doctrines that have in vast numbers of cases 
led to scepticism. 

The translators were professors of the mystical 
doctrines, derived, as we have seen in the preced- 
ing chapter, from heathen nations, and naturally 
were inclined to bend the text to fit their views. 
In the words of Dr. Kennicott, " the present Eng- 
lish version frequently expresses, not what the 
translators found in the text, but what they thought 
should have been there." ^ 

Not only have the translators led the people 
astray, but the theologians have done their full 

1 Quoted by Mr. Fearon in Thoughts on Matei^ialisiJif p. 62. 



238 BIBLE PROOF OF THE 

share in misleading the people. For instance, the 
word death, when used to represent the state of the 
lost, has been made to mean life. John Locke ob- 
serves in this connection : — 

" They shall not live forever. This is so plain 
in Scripture, and is so everywhere inculcated, that 
the wages of sin is death, and the reward of the 
righteous is everlasting life, — the constant lan- 
guage of the Scripture in the current of the New 
Testament as well as Old, is life to the just, to 
believers, to the obedient, and death to the wicked 
and unbelievers,^ — that one would wonder how the 
reader could be mistaken where death is threat- 
ened so constantly, and declared everywhere to be 
the ultimate punishment and last estate to which 
the wicked must all come. To solve this, they 
have invented a very odd signification of the word 
deaths which they would have stand for eternal life 
in torment.^ They who will put so strange and 

1 The Scriptures in their general tenor expressly promise to 
the righteous "life," "eternal" or "everlasting life," "life for 
ever more," " length of days for ever and ever," " immortality," 
" incorruption," and that they shall "live," "live for ever," 
and be " incorruptible." On the other hand, the destiny of the 
lost is called "death," "second death," "destruction," "ever- 
lasting destruction," "perdition," "corruption," and they are 
said to "die," "surely die," to be "destroyed," "destroyed 
forever," to "perish," "utterly perish," to be "consumed," 
*' burned," "devoured," "cut off," to be "as nothing," and 
"put away as dross." 

2 "We have an example of scepticism," says Mr. Hudson, 
" produced directly by the doctrine in question, in the Earl of 
Shaf tsbury. ' In a moral point of view his character was very 
estimable, both as a public and as a private man, and obtained 
the suffrages of all who knew him.' He was a firm believer in 



SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 239 

contrary a signification upon a word in a hundred 
places, where, if it had not its true and literal 
sense, one would wonder it should be so often 
used, and that in opposition to life, which in these 
places is used literally, ought to have good proofs 
for giving it a sense in those places of Scripture 
directly contrary to what it ordinarily has in other 
parts of Scripture, and everywhere else " (^Life by 
Lord King, pp. 319-322, Bohn's ed.). 

" The early Christian writers," says Mr. Hudson, 
" plainly understood our word destro}'- in its literal 
and ordinary sense. Tertullian paraphrases the 
passage [Matt. x. 28] thus : ' Who is able to kill 
and destroy (occidere et perdere) both soul and 
body.' And Cyprian : ' Who can slay (occidere) 
both soul and body.' Likewise Jerome and Au- 
gustine. And Origen says : ' Who is able to de- 
stroy and blot out both soul and body, either in 
Gehenna or as he may choose.' And not only do 
the other terms used require the literal sense of 

the fundamental doctrines of natural religion, and wrote an 
eloquent defence of the doctrine of a Deity and providence, 
which is ranked by Bishop Hurd among the most finished pro- 
ductions of the kind in the English language. He also pro- 
fessed a respect for Christianity. But, Dr. Kippis tells us, 
' there is a tradition that, amongst other difficulties which oc- 
curred to him in regard to the Christian Kevelation, he was 
startled at the idea of its containing the doctrine of the eternity 
of hell-torments; that he consulted some eminent churchmen 
whether the New Testament positively asserted that doctrine; 
and that, upon being assured that it did, he declared himself 
incapable of assenting to a system of religion which, maintained 
a tenet so repugnant to all his views of the great Government 
of the Universe" — The Doctrine oj Endless Misery, p. 21. 



240 BIBLE PEOOF OF THE 

the word 'destroy,' but the reason of the case 
demands it. Christ was 'the faithful and true 
witness.' And would he give his most solemn 
warning in ambiguous terms ? The ordinary sense 
of these words plainly names an infinite loss — the 
loss of being, and of eternal life ; the literal loss 
of the soul. The same faithful witness elsewhere 
reminds us that to gain the whole world and lose 
the soul is a foolish exchange. Did he here ex- 
pect us to understand that the soul is imperishable, 
that it can never be strictly lost, but that we have 
something infinitely worse to fear ? ' Endless 
annihilation,' says the younger Edwards, ' is an 
endless or infinite punishment ; ' and the ordinary 
sense of Christ's words denotes extinction. Did 
he mean a twofold infinitude of punishment ? " 
(Immortality through Christ Alone, p. 3.) 

In another work Mr. Hudson remarks : " I here 
venture to say that it is impossible to put the now 
popular doctrine of immortality into proper words, 
without at least a verbal contradiction of the 
Scriptures. . . . When Jehovah says, ' Dying thou 
shalt die,' and expositors say that the lost 'in dying 
shall never die ; ' when the prophet says, ' The soul 
that sinneth it shall die,' and we are afterwards 
told, ' when you hear that there is a death of the 
soul, do not think that the soul dies ; for it is im- 
mortal ; ' when the apostle declares, ' No murderer 
hath eternal life abiding in him,' and it is ex- 
plained that there are ' two kinds of eternal life,' 
one 'in shame and everlasting contempt,' then we 



SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 241 

insist that there is a verbal contradiction between 
the words of the Holy Spirit in the Bible, and the 
words of man outside of the Bible." 

" I am not specially fond of the arithmetical 
argument," says Mr. Hudson, "but it has its use 
when it can show the general tenor of the lan- 
guage of a book. Sitting down once to count out 
this argument in the Scriptures, I reckoned about 
five hundred instances in which the term ' life,' 
'everlasting life,' 'to live forever,' etc., and on the 
other hand, ' death,' ' destruction,' ' to be con- 
sumed,' etc., are applied apparently to the final 
destiny of the righteous and wicked respectively. 
And now we ask are all such passages to be taken 
in a metaphorical sense, or in the usual and ordi- 
nary sense of these terms? When the wicked 
shall ' utterly perish ' will they retain immortality ? 
Do they who fail of eternal life still live eternally ? 
(^The Silence of the Scriptures on the Immortality 
of the Soul, pp. 3, 4, 7.) 

The Rev. Joseph Blain, in his work. Death not 
Life, gives two hundred and eighty-four texts 
which have been changed from their Bible and 
common-sense meaning for the purpose of proving 
the doctrine of endless torment by assuming that 
all men are immortal. 

In regard to the pernicious effect of the immor* 
tal soul doctrine, Edmund Law, Bishop of Carlisle, 
observes: "All proper and consistent notions of 
death, resurrection, and future judgment, are con- 
founded ; in fine all the great sanctions of the 



242 BIBLE PEOOF OF THE 

Gospel are rendered meaningless or useless." 
He continues, "If we have hurt our own cause, 
and corrupted Christianity, by an improper mix- 
ture of human wisdom, falsely so called, or by the 
dregs of heathen philosophy; — if we have dis- 
guised the face of it, or rather substituted some- 
thing else in its room, and therefore put arms into 
the hands of infidels, which they have used but 
too successfully against us; — if this is so ; I ask 
whether it is not high time to examine our Bibles, 
and try to exhibit the true Christian plan as it is 
there delivered, — and abide by it : to consider 
whether we may not safel}^ trust it to its own ori- 
ginal ground, without any of those rotten props 
and buttresses, which after ages have been build- 
ing up for its support? Whether we may not 
securely rest upon that solid rock of a resurrection 
without any of those visionary prospects which 
imagination is ever apt to furnish us with, but 
which will ever fail us on a thorough trial " 
{Theory of Religion, pp. 420-422, L. 1759). 

" Imagine a creature," says Bishop Newton, 
" nay, imagine numberless creatures . . . delivered 
over to torments of endless ages, without the least 
hope or possibility of relaxation or redemption. 
Imagine it you may, but you can never seriously 
believe it, nor reconcile it to God and goodness" 
(^Dissertations, No. 60). 

The following are passages in which death is 
threatened to the wicked : " The wages of sin is 
death " (Rom. vi. 23). " The soul that sinneth, it 



SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 243 

shall die " (Ezek. xviii. 4). " Except ye repent, 
ye shall all likewise perish " (Luke xiii. 3). " Be- 
hold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish " (Acts 
xin. 41). "For as many as have sinned without 
law shall also perish without law" (Rom. ii. 12). 
" And if Christ be not raised, . . . then they also 
which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished" 
(1 Cor. XV. 17, 18). "The Lord is . . . not 
willing that any should perish, but that all should 
come to repentance" (2 Pet. in. 9). "Shall 
utterly perish in their own corruption " (2 Pet. 
n. 12). "It is not the will of your Father which is 
in heaven that one of these little ones should 
perish " (Matt. xvni. 14). " Every soul which 
will not hear that prophet shall be utterly destroyed 
from among the people" (Acts iii. 23V "Will 
destroy those husbandmen," etc. (Matt. xxi. 41). 
" Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves 
servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye 
obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience 
unto righteousness?" (Rom. vi. 16.) "What 
fruit had ye in those things whereof ye are now 
ashamed ? for the end of those things is death " 
(Rom. VI. 21). " Wherefore, as by one man 
sin entered into the world, and death by sin ; 
and so death passed upon all men, for that 
all have sinned" (Rom. v. 12). "That as sin 
hath reigned unto death, even so might grace 
reign through righteousness unto eternal life by 
Jesus Christ our Lord " (Rom. v. 21). " For since 
by man came death, by man came also the resur- 



244 BIBLE PEOOF OF THE 

rection " (1 Cor. XV. 21). " To the one we are the 
savor of death unto death " (2 Cor. ii. 16). 
" How shall we escape if we neglect so great sal- 
vation ? " (Heb. n. 3.) " We know that we have 
passed from death unto life because we love the 
brethren " (1 John ill. 14). "And God shall wipe 
away all tears from their eyes ; and there shall be 
no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither 
shall there be any more pain : for the former things 
are passed away" (Rev. xxi. 4). "For God so 
loved the world, that he gave his only begotten 
Son, that whosoever believe th in him should not 
perish, but have everlasting life " (John in. 16). 
" And I give unto them eternal life and they shall 
never perish " (John x. 28). " The last enemy 
that shall be destroyed is death " (1 Cor. xv. 26). 

We see from the last text quoted that death 
cannot denote an eternal state of consciousness, 
for death is to be destroyed. We read in Revela- 
tion (XX. 13, 14), "And the sea gave up the dead 
which were in it; and death and hell \_hades, the 
grave] delivered up the dead which were in them ; 
and they were judged every man according to his 
works. And death and hell [hades] were cast 
into the lake of fire. This is the second death." 

In Ezek. xvin. 26, we read, " When a righteous 
man turneth away from his righteousness, and 
committeth iniquity, and dieth in them ; for his in- 
iquity that he hath done shall he die." This text 
plainly indicates that there is a death for the 
wicked that takes place after the natural death ; in 
fact, the death that comes after the resurrection. 



SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 245 

The following are passages in which life is prom- 
ised to the righteous : — 

"This do, and thou shalt live" (Luke x. 28). 
" Keep my commandments and live " (Prov. lY. 4 ; 
vn. 2). " And your heart shall live that seek God " 
(Ps. LXTX. 32). "He is just, he shall surely live, saith 
the Lord God" (Ezek. xvni. 9). "Nevertheless 
if thou warn the righteous man, that the righteous 
sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live " 
(Ezek. ni. 21). " When the son hath done that 
which is lawful and right, and hath kept all my 
statutes, and hath done them, he shall surely live " 
(Ezek. xvni. 19). " The hour is coming, and 
now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the 
Son of God : and they that hear shall live " (John 

V. 25). " He that eateth me, even he shall live by 
me" (John vi. 57). "He that eateth of this bread 
shall live forever" (John vi. 58). "He that 
hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life 
eternal" (John xii. 25). " Jesus said unto her, I 
am the resurrection, and the life : he that believeth 
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live " 
(John XI. 25). " Because I live, ye shall live also " 
(John XIV. 19). " Now if we be dead with Christ, 
we believe that we shall also live with him " (Rom. 

VI. 8). "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the 
deeds of the body, ye shall live " (Rom. viii. 13). 
" In this was manifested the love of God toward 
us, because that God sent his only begotten Son 
into the world, that we might live through him " 
(1 John IV. 9). "I have set before you life and 



246 BIBLE PEOOF OF THE 

death, blessing and cursing ; therefore choose life " 
(Deut. XXX. 19). " See, I have set before thee 
this day, life and good, death and evil " (Deut. 
,xxx. 15). "And unto this people thou shalt say, 
thus saith the Lord ; Behold, I set before you the 
way of life and the way of death " (Jer. xxi. 8). 
" Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, that 
leadeth unto life ; and few there be that find it " 
(Matt. Yii. 14). " If thou wilt enter into life, 
keep the commandments " (Matt. xix. 17). " Ye 
will not come unto me, that ye might have life " 
(John V. 40). " I am come that they might have 
life " (John x. 10). "But these are written, that 
ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son 
of God; and that believing ye might have life 
through his name " (John XX. 31). " And Jesus said 
unto them, I am the bread of life " (John vi. 35). 
" Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and 
drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso 
eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eter- 
nal life ; and I will raise him up at the last day " 
(John Yi. 53, 54). " He that belie veth on the Son 
hath everlasting life : and he that believeth not 
the Son shall not see life " (John m. 36). " Keep 
thy heart with all diligence ; for out of it are the 
issues of life " (Prov. iv. 23). " For whoso findeth 
me findeth life, and shall obtain favor of the 
Lord " (Prov. vni. 35). "As righteousness tend- 
eth to life : so he that pursueth evil pursueth it to 
his own death " (Prov. xi. 19). " The fruit of the 
righteous is a tree of life " (Prov. xi. 30). "Lest 



SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 24T 

he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of 
life, and eat, and live forever : therefore the Lord 
God sent him forth from the garden of Eden " 
(Gen. III. 22, 23). "In the way of righteousness 
is life ; and in the pathway thereof there is no 
death" (Prov. xii. 28). "Christ, who hath abol- 
ished death, and hath brought life and immortality 
to light through the gospel " (2 Tim. I. 10). 

From the following passages we learn when the 
righteous are to receive their reward. 

" For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall 
all be made alive. But every man in his own 
order : Christ the firstfruits ; afterward they that 
are Christ's at his coming" (1 Cor. xv. 22, 23). 
" So when this corruptible shall have put on incor- 
ruption, and this mortal shall have put on immor- 
tality, then shall be brought to pass the saying 
that is written. Death is swallowed up in victory " 
(1 Cor. XV. 54). "Whoso eateth my flesh, and 
drinketh my blood, hath eternal life ; and I will 
raise him up at the last day " (John vi. 54). 
" When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then 
shall ye also appear with him in glory " (Col. iii. 
4). " And this is the Father's will which hath sent 
me, that of all which he hath given me I should 
lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the 
last day" (John vi. 39). "And this is the will 
of him that sent me, that every one which seeth 
the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlast- 
ing life ; and I will raise him up at the last day " 
(John VI. 40). "But when thou makest a feast, 



248 BIBLE PROOF OF THE 

call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind : 
and thou shalt be blessed ; for they cannot recom- 
pense thee : for thou shalt be recompensed at the 
resurrection of the just " (Luke xiv. 13, 14). " As 
therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the 
fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. . . . 
Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in 
the kingdom of their Father " (Matt. xiii. 40, 43). 
"But I would not have you to be ignorant, breth- 
ren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye 
sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. 
For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, 
even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God 
bring with him. . . . For the Lord himself shall 
descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice 
of the archangel, and with the trump of God : and 
the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which 
are alive and remain shall be caught up together 
with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the 
air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord" 
(1 Thess. IV. 13-17). 

In reference to eternal punishment, Mr. Hudson 
observes : " With the exception of one dubious 
expression in the book of Daniel, the Old Testa- 
ment is entirely silent on the subject of the eternity 
of future punishment. The same thing is true of 
a very large majority of the books of the New 
Testament. But in the 44th, the 46th, and the 
48th verses of the ninth chapter of the Gospel of 
St. Mark, we find our Saviour speaking with 
the most emphatic iteration of ' their worm ' 



SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 249 

which ' dieth not,' and of ' the fire ' which ' is not 
quenched ; ' and in the 43d and 45th verses of the 
same chapter, He, with yet deeper emphasis, refers 
to ' the fires that never shall be quenched.' . . . 
But while the reverence due to our Divine Teacher 
forbids us to subtract one jot or tittle from the 
force of his expressions, it no less distinctly for- 
bids us to enhance their force by adding one jot 
or tittle to them. Let it, then be considered, firsts 
that the words quoted from the 43d and 45th 
verses ( ' the fire that never shall be quenched ' ) 
are rejected by some eminent critics as a spurious 
interpolation, and, secondly^ that, supposing the 
text to be genuine, the words ^ . . . mean, not 
'the fire that never shall be quenched,' but the 
'inextinguishable fire;' and, thirdly^ that no one 
of these five verses in St. Mark's Gospel asserts, 
either in express terms or by any necessary impli- 
cation, that the pains to which they refer will be 
endured throughout eternity. They assert only 
that the agent or instrument by means of which 
those pains are to be inflicted is of an immortal 
or indestructible nature " (JEuman Destiny^ pp. 
9, 10). 

The illustrations given in Matt. in. 12, Luke in. 
17, of the effects of the " unquenchable fire," clearly 
denote that it consumes and destroys. Jude 
says: "Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the 
cities about them . . . are set forth for an exam- 
ple of eternal fire" (7th verse). If the fire that 
1 The author gives the Greek words, which I omit. 



150 BIBLE PHOOF OF THE 

burned Sodom and Gomorrah was eternal fire, then 
it follows that the wicked will not suffer forever 
in unquenchable fire, for no one supposes that the 
cities of the plain are still burning. Compare 
Ps. I. 4; John XV. 6 ; 2 Kings xxii. 17 ; Ps. cxviii. 
12 ; Isa. I. 28, 31 ; Jer. iv. 4 ; vn. 20 ; xvii. 27 ; 
Ezek. XX. 47, 48 ; Amos v. 6. 

In Matt. XXV. 46, we read, " And these shall go 
away into everlasting punishment : but the right- 
eous into life eternal." In this verse punishment 
is used instead of death. Eternal death will cer- 
tainly be eternal punishment, but it is not implied 
that this punishment will be an eternal conscious 
state. It is frequently asserted by believers in 
eternal torment that a punishment that is not felt, 
is no punishment.^ The punishment that is threat- 
ened the wicked is said to be destruction, not tor- 
ture. 

Jeremy Taylor, having cited Justin Martyr and 
Irenseus as holding that the lost will become ex- 
tinct, says: "Concerning this doctrine of theirs, 
so severe, and yet so moderated, there is less to be 
objected than against the supposed fancy of Ori- 
gen ; for it is a strange consideration to suppose 
an eternal torment to those to whom it was never 

^ That ''extermination is the greatest of all punishments," 
is a common remark of Maimonides, the Eagle of the Jewish 
Doctors, and of other Eabbis. One of these, speaking of the 
death of the soul, says that it is "perfected punishment, and 
excision absolute, and perdition and corruption, which is never 
reversed, and is the greatest among all punishments" — Human 
Destiny, p. 84. 



SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEOEY. 251 

threatened, to those who never heard of Christ, to 
those that lived probabl}^ well, to heathens of good 
lives, to ignorant and untaught people, to people 
surprised in a single crime, to men that die young 
in their natural follies and foolish lusts, to them 
that fall in a sudden gayety and excessive joy, to 
all alike ; to all infinite and eternal, even to un- 
warned people ; and that this should be inflicted 
by God who infinitely loves His creatures, who 
died for them, who pardons easily, and pities 
readily, and excuses much, and delights in our 
being saved, and would not have us to die, and 
takes little things in exchange for great. It is 
certain that God's mercies are infinite, and it is 
also certain that the matter of eternal torments 
cannot be truly understood; ^ and when the school- 
men go about to reconcile the Divine justice, and 
consider why God punishes eternally a temporal 
sin, or a state of evil, they speak variously, and 
uncertainly, and unsatisfyingly " (^Chrisfs Advent 
to Judgment^ Sermon ill). 

Bishop Blackburn e observes: "Indeed the lib- 
erties our translators have taken with the word 
psyche^ are quite unaccountable ; particularly 
Matt. XYi. 25, 26, where this pretence of a dou- 
ble signification can have no place. 

" Wliosoever^ say they, will save his life \_psyc'he'] 

1 Mr. Hudson says : " If, then, God chooses that evil should 
exist for ever, or if he lacks the power or the right to bring it to 
an end, or to let it die, the proof of its sad eternity must be 
a plain declaration from God himself that such is liis free choice 
or his dire necessity " — The Eights or Wrongs ? p. 8. 



252 BIBLE PEOOF OF THE 

shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life 
[psyche'] for my sake shall find it. For what is 
a man profited if he shall gain the whole ivorld 
and lose his own soul \_psyche~\ or what shall a 
man give in exchange for his soul" \_psyche 
again] ? 

" Here it is manifest that our Lord is speaking of 
psyche under one and the same idea in both 
verses. And what reason could the translators 
have to render it by two differeut words, but an 
unwarrantable inclination to accommodate our 
Saviour's language to their own system ? Had 
they dealt impartially with the sacred text, they 
must either have put soul in the 25th verse, or 
life in the 26th" (vol. cit. p. 204). 

Dr. Clarke, in commenting upon the 26th verse, 
says ; " On what authority many have translated 
the word psyche in the 25th verse life^ and in this 
verse soul^ I know not; but I am certain it means 
life in both cases." 

The account of the bringing to life of the 
widow's son by the prophet Elijah is thought to 
prove the existence of an immaterial soul that 
leaves the body at death. In 1 Kings xvii. 22, 
we read, "And the soul of the child came into 
him again, and he revived." What this soul was 
that left the child at death we are told in the 
17th verse of the same chapter. " The son of the 
mistress of the house, fell sick ; and his sickness 
was so sore, that there was no breath left in him." 
We see by this that "the breath of life" was 



SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 253 

what left the child at death. In the account 
of the vision of the valley of dry bones, given us 
by Ezekiel (xxxvii.), after the flesh had come 
upon the dry bones, we read : " But there was no 
breath in them. Then said he unto me. Prophesy 
unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to 
the wind, Thus saith the Lord God ; Come from 
the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these 
slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as he 
commanded me, and the breath came into them, 
and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an 
exceeding great army." 

The passage in the Book of Numbers (xvi. 22) 
in which Moses and Aaron address the Supreme 
Being as the God of the spirits of all flesh has 
been advanced in order to prove the separate ex- 
istence of the soul. Those who advance it ignore 
the word all^ which is the gist of the remark, pla- 
cing as it does the cause of life throughout the 
whole creation upon the same foundation : so, if 
man has a separate soul, animals also have a sepa- 
rate soul. 

" The children of this world marry and are 
given in marriage. But they which shall be ac- 
counted worthy to obtain that world and the 
resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are 
given in marriage ; neither can they die any more; 
for they are equal unto the angels; and are the 
children of God, being the children of the resur- 
rection. Now that the dead are raised even 
Moses showed, at the bush, when he calleth the 



254 BIBLE PEOOF OF THE 

Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, 
and the God of Jacob " (Luke xv. 34-38). 

Some have supposed that the expression, "a 
God of the living," proves that the dead are now 
alive. "But this," says Mr. Hudson, "would 
manifestly vacate the proof of a resurrection — the 
very thing that Christ was to show. What need 
of a resurrection for those who live? 'Ye de- 
stroy the arguments wherewith Christ and Paul 
prove the resurrection,' saj^s Mr. Tyndall, answer- 
ing the Platonic Thomas More, ' If the souls be in 
heaven, tell me why they be not in as good case 
as the angels be ? And then what cause is there of 
the resurrection ? ' " In John Yi. 47, Jesus says, 
" Verily I say unto you. He that believeth on me 
hath everlasting life." The text does not say. He 
will have^ but Re hath. And again, " Whoso eat- 
eth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal 
life; and I will raise him up at the last day" 
(John VI. 54). 

The following passage is thought by the imma- 
terialists to prove that man has an immortal soul. 
" And fear not them which kill the body but are 
not able to kill the soul (^psyche) ; but rather fear 
him which is able to destroy both soul Qpsyche) 
and body in hell " ^ (Matt. x. 28). 

1 Hell, " in Hebrew, Scheol; this word most commonly signi- 
fies the grave." — CruderCs Concordance. " The word Hell is 
of Saxon extraction, and signifies a covered place ; from the 
same original we still retain, in our language, the word heal, or 
hele, which signifies to cover over.'' — Rees's Cyclopcedia. " It 
is certain that the Greek word we render Hell does properly sig- 



SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEOEY. 255 

If the Greek word psyche which is in this verse 
rendered soul were rendered life^ this passage 
would harmonize with the rest of the Bible. 
Psyche is rendered life forty times out of the one 
hundred and five times it occurs in the New Tes- 
tament, and there appears to be no reason why it 
should not have been so rendered in this verse. 
In the Emphatic Diaglott it is so rendered. This 
exhortation was addressed to the Apostles only, and 
at that period of the mission of Jesus when, after 
haviiDg selected his twelve disciples, and having 
given them power to perform miracles, they were 
sent forth as "sheep in the midst of wolves." 
The meaning of the verse undoubtedly is, that they 
should not fear those who can destroy this present 
life, but cannot destroy the eternal life that he had 
promised his followers; "This is the promise that 
he hath promised us, even eternal life " (John il. 
25. 

In Luke xn. 4, 5, the same exhortation is given 
in the following words ; " And I say unto you, 
my friends, be not afraid of them that kill the 
body, and after that have no more that they can 
do. But I will forewarn ye whom ye shall fear ; 
fear him, which after he has killed hath power to 
cast into hell ; yea, I say unto you, fear him." 

The word rendered hell in this passage is Ge- 
henna, the word that originally represented the 
valley of the son of Hinnom, near Jerusalem, also 

nify no more than a place that is withdrawn from om: view." — 
Goadby's Bible, note on Luke xxi. 23. 



256 BIBLE PBOOF OF THE 

called Tophet, Abaddon, and Valley of Slaughter. 
This was a region of desolation and death. Hither 
were carried carcasses and other filth of the city 
to be destroyed by worms and fire, but nothing 
was ever deposited there that was to be preserved 
alive. Dr. Watson observes : " As the worm itself 
dies not, but destroys that it feeds upon, and as 
a fire unquenched consumes that upon which it 
kindles, so when temporal judgments are expressed 
by this phrase, the utter destruction of persons, 
cities, and nations appears to be intended." * 
Hence the expression in Isa. Lxvi. 24, respecting 
"the carcasses of the men that have transgressed" 
against the Lord ; " for their worm shall not die, 
neither shall their fire be quenched ; and they shall 
be an abhorring unto all flesh." The same rea- 
soning which deduces the immortality of the lost, 
in other words, a state of eternal torment, from 
Mark ix. 43-48, will also prove the immortality 
of " carcasses " from the passage in Isaiah. Fire 
either purifies or consumes. It is employed in 
purifying gold and silver, and for consuming 
thorns, briers, stubble, and tares. The wicked are 
compared with the last-named objects, but never 
with anything that would not be burned up if cast 
into the fire. The scriptural use of the term " un- 
quenched " indicates the complete destruction of 
that upon which the fire is said to act (see 2 Kings 
xxn. 17 ; Ps. cxyiii. 12 ; Isa. i. 28, 31 ; Jer. iv. 

^ Quoted by C. F. Hudson in Immortality through Christ 
Alone, 



SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEOKY. 257 

4 ; xvn. 27 ; Ezek. xx. 47, 48 ; Amos v. 6 ; Matt, 
ni. 12 ; Luke ill. 17). That the fire of Gehenna 
is a symbol not of mere torment, but of destruc- 
tion, might be inferred from the manifold use of 
the term fire in the Scriptures, and from other 
Jewish writings. Thus the Targumist on Gen. iii. 
24, speaks of Gehenna as " burning up the wicked," 
and in Eccles. viii. 10 : " They have gone to be 
consumed in Gehenna." The expression in Mat- 
thew, "there shall be wailing and gnashing of 
teeth," may be explained by the passage in Ps. 
CXii. 10 : " The wicked shall see, and shall be 
grieved ; he shall gnash with his teeth, and melt 
away ; the desire of the wicked shall perish." In 
regard to Matt. x. 28, Mr. Fearon asks: "Is it 
not understood of the power of the Deity, that it 
could as easily destroy himself, as that which is 
inherently immortal ? " (vol. cit. p. 58.) 

Of Luke XII. 4, 5, Bishop Blackburne observes : 
" Here is no mention of the soul's subsisting after 
its separation from the body ; no mention of any 
thing after death but the casting into hell ; which 
is plain does not happen till tliat which has been 
killed, viz. the man, is put into some new capa- 
city of suffering, or, in other words is once more 
become a living soul " (vol. cit. p. 202). 

" Tlien shall the dust return to the earth as it 
was ; and the spirit [ruacK] shall return to God 
who gave it " (Eccles. xii. 7). This text is said to 
teach that the immortal soul, or spirit, returns to 
God at death. From David we learn what it is 



258 BIBLE PEOOF OF THE 

that " returns to God who gave it." David says : 
" His breath [^ruach'] goeth forth, he returneth to 
his earth; in that verj day his thoughts perish" 
(Ps. CXLVI. 4). It will be observed that the 
Hebrew word ruach, that is rendered breath in the 
latter verse, is rendered spirit in the former. There 
is no reason why it should not be rendered breath 
in both instances, especially as that was given by 
God when he created the man from the dust of 
the earth. 

"Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth 
upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth down- 
ward to the earth ? " This passage has been quoted 
to prove that man has an immortal soul that 
ascends to heaven at death, while the very argu- 
ment of the writer was intended to show that at 
the moment of death there is no longer any differ- 
ence between man whose breath goeth upward, 
man's figure being erect, and that of the beast 
which goeth downward, not being erect.* Solo- 
mon says: "I said in mine heart concerning the 
estate of the sons of men, that God might mani- 
fest them, and that they might see that they them- 
selves are beasts. For that which befalleth the 
sons of men befalleth beasts ; even one thing be- 
falleth them ; as the one dieth, so dieth the other ; 
yea, they have all one breath ; so that a man hath 
no pre-eminence above a beast: for all is vanity. 
All go unto one place ; all are of the dust and all 

1 See Bishop Blackburne's Works, vol. ii. p. 58; also Thoughts 
on Materialism, p. 46, Fearon. 



SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 259 

turn to dust again. Who knoweth the spirit of 
man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast 
that goeth downward ? " (Eccles. in. 18-21.) 

Substitute for the word spirit [^ruaeh'] in the 
last verse, the word breath, which the translators 
have rendered from the word ruach in the sen- 
tence, ''they have all one breath," and no difficulty- 
occurs. 

The following passage is often quoted to prove 
the existence of an immaterial soul : " But ye are 
come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the 
living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an 
innumerable company of angels, to the general 
assembly and church of the first-born, which are 
written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, 
and to the spirits \_pneuma'] of just men made 
perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new cov- 
enant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speak- 
eth better things than that of Abel" (Heb. xii. 
22-24). In commenting upon these passages, Dr. 
Clarke says: "The description in these verses 
does not refer to a heavenly state." " In heaven 
there is no need of a Mediator or sprinkling of 
blood ; but these are mentioned in the state 
which the apostle describes." The "first-born," 
he says, " are those who first received the gospel of 
Christ, and who are elsewhere termed the 'first 
fruits,' — ' the spirits of just men made perfect.' " 
He says we cannot understand these terms with- 
out the assistance of Jewish phraseology. The 
Jews divide mankind into three classes : first the 



260 BIBLE PKOOF OF THE 

just perfect; second, the wicked perfect; third, 
those between both. " The just perfect are those 
who have conquered all brutal appetites and gross 
passions." " The wicked perfect are those who 
never repent." '' The intermediate are those who 
are influenced partly by the evil principle and 
partly by the good." "The spirits of the just 
men made perfect, or the righteous perfect, are 
the full-grown christians." 

Of the verse, " I saw under the altar the souls of 
them that were slain for the word of God, and for 
the testimony which they held " (Rev. vi. 9), Mr. 
Fearon says : " Though adduced with much confi- 
dence," it has not " even the semblance of an argu- 
ment in its favor ; for the ' souls ' in this case 
should be 'lives;' and then the representation of 
such being under the altar, will be seen to be per- 
fectly appropriate ; forming, as the verse does, part 
of a most highly figurative representation of the 
opening of the six seals ; in which the stars from 
heaven are said to be falling, and the mountains 
and islands moving out of their places : and the 
particular allusion in the sixth verse, appears to 
be borrowed from the practice at the altar of vic- 
tims in the temple ; at the foot of which altar the 
hlood (the life — the soul ^) was poured out, which 
blood being close to the sanctuary, it was sup- 
posed that it apprised God of the sacrifice that had 

^ Mr.Tylor says: "The idea of soul and blood, familiar to 
the Karens and Papuas, appears prominently in Jewish and 
Arabic philosophy" — Frimitive Culture, yoI. i. p. 389. 



SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 261 

been offered to him, and that he saw it; thus the 
lives of those who had sacrificed themselves in the 
cause of Revelation, are here, in bold and beauti- 
ful language, described as being under the altar, 
in the sight of God" (vol. cit. pp. 96, 97). 

The account of the rich man and Lazaras given 
by our Saviour in Luke xvi. 19-21, is frequently 
quoted for the purpose of proving a conscious state 
of everlasting torment, thus showing the immor- 
tality of the soul. That this account is a parable 
is generally acknowledged. Of this account Mr. 
Hudson observes : — 

" That it was regarded as a parable by many of 
the Christian Fathers will be readily inferred from 
the application which they made of it. And this 
opinion was so strong that in some manuscripts it 
came to be expressly called a parable. A manu- 
script of the seventh century prefaces it thus: 
'And he spake also another parable.' Another 
of the tenth century reads : ' The Lord spake this 
parable ; ' and with this agree some copies of the 
Gospels. The scholiast in a few later manuscripts 
says : ' The scope of the passage respecting the 
rich man and Lazarus is a parable and it was spoken 
parabolically, if indeed the evangelist did not pre- 
fix this title ^ to the account ' (See * Tischendorf,' 
N. Y. 1859). Lightfoot says : " That it was a par- 
able, not only the consent of all expositors may 

' This title is not prefixed to the parables of the prodigal 
son and the unjust steward, which immediately precede this 
account. 



262 BIBLE PEOOF OF THE 

assure us, but the thing itself speaks it '* (^Heh, 
and Talm. Uxercit., in loco'). 

In order to understand this account fully, it will 
be necessary to go back to the fifteenth chapter of 
Luke, in which we read : " Then drew near unto 
him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. 
And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, 
This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them." 
In order to show the Pharisees and scribes that he 
came not to save the righteous, but sinners, Jesus 
relates to them the parables of the lost sheep and 
the lost piece of money. He then gives them the 
parable of the prodigal son, in which he shows 
them their selfishness in not rejoicing that the 
publicans and sinners, also God's children, are to 
be saved. Jesus then relates to his disciples the 
parable of the unfaithful steward, and says to his 
disciples, "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." 
In the next verse we read: "And the Pharisees 
also, who were covetous, heard all these things: 
and they derided him." Jesus said unto them, 
"Ye are they which justify yourselves before men ; 
but God knoweth your hearts : for that which is 
highly esteemed among men is abomination in the 
sight of God." Jesus goes on to tell the Pharisees 
that the " law and the prophets were until John : 
since that time the kingdom of God is preached." 
He illustrates this fact by referring to the law 
regulating the marriage relations, which allows a 
woman to marry if her husband be dead (see 
Rom. VII. 1-3). St. Paul says: "Wherefore, my 



SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 263 

brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by 
the body of Christ; that ye should be married 
to another, even to him who is raised from the 
dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God " 
(Rom. VII. 4). By this Jesus shows the Pharisees 
that the law being dead they were free to accept 
him, but had not done so. Then he gives them 
the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. 

This parable undoubtedly sets forth the past 
and future relations of the Jews and Gentiles. 
Dives is the Jewish nation, "clothed in the purple 
of the king and the fine linen of the priest." " He 
fares sumptuously," the Jews being richly provided 
with all spiritual privileges, not hungering and 
thirsting but filled with their own righteousness. 
The miserable Lazarus represents the Gentile na- 
tion upon which the Jews looked with contempt. 
The rich man and Lazarus both die. The former 
state of things is abolished. Lazarus is carried by 
angels ^ into Abraham's bosom, while Dives is cast 
into hell. " The middle wall of partition" being 
broken down, the Gentiles are carried by messen- 
gers—Jesus and his disciples, into the kingdom, 
or church of God which originated with Abraham. 
The Gentiles abandoned their idolatrous worship, 
became followers of Christ and have been greatly 

' *' The word angel is not properly a denomination of nature, 
but of office; denoting as much as nuncius, messenger, a person 
employed to carry one's orders, or to deliver his will" — Rees's 
CyclopcBdia. "The Greek word we render angel does, in its 
primitive sense, signify nothing more than messenger" — Goad- 
by's Bible, vol. iv. p. 910. 



264 BIBLE PROOF OF THE 

exalted both morally and politically, while the 
Jews have been degraded both morally and politi- 
cally and are still " trodden down" or tormented by 
the Gentiles. The Jews had their good things 
before the new covenant, the Gentiles have had 
theirs since. The Jews would have no dealings 
with the Samaritans because they permitted Gen- 
tiles to have some privileges in their city, and they 
have since been in the same condition that they 
tried to keep the Gentiles. The beggar has been 
comforted and the rich man tormented. 

The " great gulf fixed," which is said to separate 
Dives and Lazarus, probably represents the new 
covenant^ "established upon better promises," of 
which Jesus was the mediator. The Jews re- 
jected this covenant and were married again to 
the laiv^ from which Christ and the apostles most 
plainly declare they were divorced. The Gentile 
Christian cannot join the Jewish church and be- 
come a Christian because he would be rejecting 
Christ and connecting himself with the law from 
which he is divorced, hence the new covenant 
stands as a gulf between Jews and Gentiles.^ 

In regard to the five hretJiren mentioned in the 
parable, Mr. Grant remarks : " As has been already 
intimated, we understand that they represent the 
ten lost tribes of Israel, who were carried captive 
by Shalmanezer, seven hundred and twenty-one 
years before Christ. They were not joined with 
the Jews (the other two tribes) in condemning 
1 See The Rich Man and Lazarus, p. 17, Miles Grant. 



SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEOKY. 265 

and crucifying the Saviour, and therefore they are 
represented as being in a safer and better condi- 
tion than the rich man." " When they went into 
captivity they took the Scriptures with them, 
hence it is said, 'they have Moses and the 
prophets; let them hear them'" (^The Rich Man 
and Lazarus^ pp. 18, 19). 

If this account is to be taken literally, then the 
beggar, not an immaterial soul, but Lazarus, " full 
of sores," was carried by angels to Abraham's 
bosom, and the rich man, not his soul, lifted up 
his eyes in the grave, for the word hades which is 
here rendered hell means the grave. 

If it be maintained that it was the immaterial 
soul of Lazarus that was carried to Abraham's 
bosom, then it must be admitted that an immate- 
rial soul can be buried in the grave, and be in a 
conscious state while there, for the passage dis- 
tinctly states that the rich man was buried. It 
must also be admitted that an immaterial soul has 
a tongue that can be cooled by water and that an 
immaterial soul has fingers that can be dipped in 
water, also that an immaterial soul can be tor- 
mented by fire while buried in the grave. 

If it be asserted that the Saviour would not 
have used such a parable had not such a state of 
existence after death been a fact, we would ask if 
the parables in Ezek. xvii. 2-8, and in Judg. ix. 
8-15, are founded on facts ? 

A similar parable to the parable of the rich man 
and Lazarus is found in the Talmud, which is a 



266 BIBLE PROOF OF THE 

body of Jewish tradition. Lightfoot renders it as 
follows : '* There was a good man and a wicked 
man that died. As for the good man he had no 
funeral rites solemnized ; but the wicked man had. 
Afterward there was one saw in his dream, the 
good man walking in gardens, and led by pleasant 
springs; but the wdcked man, with his tongue 
trickling, drop by drop, at the bank of a river, en- 
deavoring to touch the water but he could not " 
(Jerusalem Talmud^ in ChagigaJi^ fol. 77, cal. 4). 

The following parable was taken by Hammond 
from the Babylonian Talmud (ad. cod. Berachoth) : 
" A king made a great feast, and invited all the 
strangers; and there came one poor man, and 
stood at his gates, and said unto them. Give me 
one bit or portion ; and they considered him not. 
And he said. My lord, the king, of all the great 
feast thou hast made, is it hard for thee to give 
me one bit or fragment, among them? And the 
title of this passage there, is, a 'parable of a king 
of flesh and blood.' " 

These extracts show that there were different 
versions of the parable and incidentally confirm its 
parabolic character. They also appear to show 
that the parable did not originate Avith Christ. 

The following passage is thought to prove that 
the soul, or spirit of man enters at once into an- 
other state of conscious existence: "And Jesus 
said unto him, verily I say unto thee. To-day shalt 
thou be with me in paradise " (Luke xxiii. 43). 

" It may be shown," says Mr. Fearon, " that it 



SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 267 

in no way warrants the application made of it; 
and indeed the genuineness of the passage itself is 
also a fair subject of dispute. The fact is re- 
corded by Luke only, who was not present, and 
who probably had not even seen Jesus. It is not 
mentioned by John, who witnessed the whole 
scene of the crucifixion. By Mark it is not re- 
ferred to. Nay, more : it is absolutely contra- 
dicted by Matthew, who states that ' the thieves ' 
(i.e., both) 'joined with the priests and those 
that passed by, in reviling Jesus ; ' whereas the 
passage in Luke speaks of one only as reviling, 
and of the other as being favorable towards 
Jesus. The critical part of the argument on this 
subject has been thus shortly but well summed up 
in a note of the Improved Version : ' This verse 
was wanting in the copies of Marcion and other 
reputed heretics, and in some of the older copies 
in the time of Origen ; nor is it cited either by 
Justin, Irenseus, or TertuUian ; though the two 
former have quoted almost every text in Luke 
which relates to the crucifixion, and TertuUian 
wrote concerning the intermediate state.' The 
silence of such writers as these, desirous as they 
constantly were of supporting their Pagan notions 
by a constant reference to the Christian writers, 
ma}^ be taken as affording strong evidence against 
the genuineness of the passage " (vol. cit. p. 61). 
The fact that the thieves did not die the same 
day that Jesus is said to have spoken these words 
and to have died, points to an error somewhere. 



268 BIBLE PEOOF OF THE 

The Jewish day begins and ends at six o'clock, the 
evening or night being the first half of the day. 
We are told that Jesus died the ninth hour of the 
day (Mark xv. 34-37), which was three o'clock in 
the afternoon. 

" And now when the even was come, because it 
was the preparation, that is the day before the 
sabbath, Joseph of Arimathsea . . . went in boldly 
unto Pilate and craved the body of Jesus " (Mark 
XV. 42, 43). In John xix. 31-33, we read: " The 
Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, 
that the bodies should not remain upon the cross 
on the sabbath day (for that sabbath day was an 
high day), besought Pilate that their legs might 
be broken, and that they might be taken away. 
Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the 
first, and of the other which was crucified with 
him. But when they came to Jesus, and saw 
that he was dead already, they brake not his legs." 
Thus we see that Jesus died at three o'clock on 
the day that the crucifixion took place, and that 
in the evening of that day, which was the begin- 
ning of another day, the thieves were still alive. 

Still another fact points to an error in this con- 
nection. In Matt. XTi. 40, we read : " So shall the 
Son of man be three days and three nights in the 
heart of the earth." It does not say the body of 
the Son of man, or the habitation of the immortal 
soul of the Son of man, but, the Son of man. St. 
Paul says : " Now that he ascended^ what is it but 
that he also descended first into the lower parts of 



SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 269 

the earth" (the tomb) (Eph. v. 9). Jesus on the 
morning of his resurrection said to Mary, " Touch 
me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father" 
(John XX. 17). If Jesus was in the grave three 
days after his death, he could not have gone imme- 
diately to paradise, so that if he made any promise 
to the thief he could not have meant that the 
promise was to be fulfilled on the day that he made 
it. The " to-day " in the promise must have re- 
ferred solely to the day on which the promise was 
made instead of referring to the time of the ful- 
filment of the promise. 

In commenting upon this verse, Bishop Black- 
burne says : " That our Lord adapted his language 
to this man's notions as far as was necessary, there 
can be no doubt. But the first question before us 
is, what were this man's notions (not of paradise 
but) of the kingdom of Christ? Now by the 
kingdom of Christ, the Jews of our Saviour's 
time generally understood a temporal kingdom of 
earthly happiness ; to this they likewise gave the 
name of the future world; and many of those 
among them who believed a resurrection consid- 
ered it introductory to the felicities of such a 
kingdom only. And that the penitent thief him 
self still retained that notion of it, appears pretty 
plainly from his words," " when thou coiiiest (not 
into as our translation gives it, but) in thy king- 
dom^ i.e., when thou comest on earth in power and 
great glory as we expect — then remember me*'' 
" But it must not be forgot that there is one con- 



270 BIBLE PEOOF OF THE 

struction of the Greek words containing our 
Saviour's promise to the penitent thief, which 
limits no time for his being in paradise with 
Christ. Remove the comma from thee^^ where the 
common editions place it, and put it after to-day^ 
— I say unto thee to-day^ thou shalt 5e, &c., and the 
time fulfilling the promise will be left indefinite.'' 
"The propriety of this construction arises from 
hence, — that the penitent thief having desired to 
be remembered when our Saviour should come in 
his kingdom ; that is, to be remembered at a future 
period, the answer of Jesus gives him to under- 
stand that he was remembered at that instant, and 
so effectually remembered, that whenever Jesus 
himself should be in paradise, the thief might be 
sure of being there with him." ^ 

It should be borne in mind that the Scriptures 
were originally written without any pauses, hence 
any one may punctuate the Bible as the sense may 
demand. To those who affirm that the to-day in 
this arrangement is superfluous, we would say that 
the phrase is frequently used in the Old Testament 
in a way that would be equally superfluous : " I 
command thee this thing to-day''^ (Deut. XY. 15). 
"I denounce unto you this day — that ye shall 
surely perish" (Deut. xxx. 18). "I command 
thee this day" (Deut. xxx. 11). Indeed all 

1 The English word is here substituted for the Greek which 
is used by Bishop Blackburne. 

2 Bishop Blackburne' s Works^ vol. n. pp. 187, 193, 194, 
Camb. 1804. 



SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 271 

classes of persons frequently use to-day, to-night, 
this day, and this night, in the same sense in which 
to-day is used in the text. Thus Daniel Webster, 
in. a speech delivered on the 7th of March, 1850, 
says : " I speak to-day for the preservation of the 
union." Also Rufus Choate at one time said, 
" To-day^ fellow-citizens, we also speak for the 
Union." 

The account of Saul and the woman of Endor is 
adduced by many to prove the existence of im- 
mortal souls, and also an intermediate state for 
their reception. In regard to this account Mr. 
Fearon remarks : " In forming a judgment of this 
case, it may be well to glance at the characters 
who are represented as acting in it : — First, the 
king of Israel, who upon disobeying the commands 
of the Deity was told, that, 'the Lord had rejected 
him from being king over Israel,' and who in all 
his subsequent engagements with the enemies of 
Israel was uniformly unsuccessful ; and the cause 
of such disasters was known by the whole people 
to be, that the God of Israel had rejected Saul 
from reigning over his chosen people ; in conse- 
quence of which he was oppressed with melan- 
choly (z.e. ' an evil spirit came upon him ; ') ' and 
when he saw the host of the Philistines, he was 
afraid, and his heart greatly troubled him ; and he 
inquired of the Lord, and the Lord answered him 
not. Then said Saul unto his servants, Seek me 
a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may 
inquire of her.' The second personage in this 



272 BIBLE PEOOF OF THE 

representation is the woman so selected, one whose 
occupation agreed with the necromancers of the 
heathen nations, ' who summoned the spirits of the 
dead to appear before them ; and who carried on 
their trade in subterranean caverns, which were 
well calculated to insure successful imposition.' ^ 
But the Lord of Israel had prohibited the exercise 
of such arts ; commanding his people, that ' When 
thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God 
giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the 
abominations of those nations. There shall not be 
found among you an}^ one that maketh his son or 
his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth 
divination, or an observer of times, or an en- 
chanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter 
with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. 
For all that do these things are an abomination 
unto the Lord : and because of these abominations 
the Lord thy God doth drive them out from be- 
fore thee.' 2 The third character assumes to be 
that of Samuel, whom ' all Israel, from Dan even 
to Beersheba, knew to be a prophet of the Lord,' 
and, when he 'died, all the Israelites were gath- 
ered together, and lamented him, and buried him 
in his house at Eamah.' 

" These facts being premised, we approach the 
chapter under examination, in which the defenders 
of Immaterialism would fain make God to sanction 

^ See Miehaeli's Commentaries on the Laws of Moses, vol. 
IV. pp. 83-92, 8vo, edit. 1814. 
2 Deut. xvin. 9-12. 



SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 273 

that which he had solemnly denounced as an 
abomination in his sight ; and which is supposed 
to confer upon one whom he had commanded to 
be 'cast out of the land,' the power to raise from 
the dead even a prophet of God, and through 
whose instrumentality, although Jehovah would 
not answer Saul, ' neither by dreams, nor by urim, 
nor by prophets,' yet he is made to answer him by 
the power of one that had ' a familiar spirit ; ' for 
it is puerile in Mr. Granville Sharpe to attempt to 
get over this difficulty by asserting that the com- 
munication was not made ' by the incantations of 
the witch, but by some respectable agent of the 
divine will,' — the text being, ' Then said the wom- 
an (to Saul), whom shall I bring up unto thee? 
And he said. Bring me up Samuel. And when the 
woman saw Samuel, she cried with a loud voice,' ^ 
&c. So that to the immaterial system may be 
well left whatever benefit it can derive from the 
serious imputations which such an hypothesis casts 
upon the divine government. Besides which, how 
can immaterialism be reconciled with the present 
relation? and how can that which is spiritual and 
not visible to the sight, be seen to be ' an old man 
covered with a mantle ' ? But the whole case is 
clearly one of imposition dexterously practised 
upon the weak, desponding, and superstitious mind 
of Saul, and effected clearly by the practice of the 
art of ventriloquy. ' The term " ventriloqims " is 
compounded of venter, belly, and loquor, to speak ; 
' Deut. XVIII. 11, 12. 



274 BIBLE PEOOF OF THE 

and is applied to persons who speak inwardly, so 
that the voice proceeding out of the thorax seems 
to come from some distance, and in any direction.' 
See the Work of M. de la Chapelle, published in 
1772, in which is shown that in the case of Saul, 
the speech supposed to be addressed to him by 
Samuel, proceeded from the mouth of the sorcer- 
ess of Endor, and that the ancient oracles derived 
their influence from the exercise of this art ; and 
a reference to the original will tend to aid this 
view of the case: — the Hebrew of the ^familiar 
spirit ' of the witch is ' OB,' and the ' plural oboth;' 
and such persons were afterwards denominated 
' Pytho7iesses,^ thereby implying a pretence to divi- 
nation : accordingly, in the Vulgate version of 
1 Sam. xxvni. 7, 8, the word used is ' P3"thon : ' 
besides which the witch must have necessarily 
known Saul, who 'from his head and shoulders was 
taller than any man' in Israel. Saul throughout 
the whole performance did not of himself see 
Samuel ; the relation is — ' When the woman saw 
Samuel, she cried with a loud voice,' &c. And 
Saul said to her, ' What sawest thou ? And he said 
unto her. What form is he of?' And when she 
had answered the foregoing question, Saul ' per- 
ceived,' or acknowledged from the representation 
of the witch, that it was Samuel. Thus the de- 
ception upon Saul completely succeeded ; and he 
'stooped with his face to the ground, and bowed 
himself.' And it is especially deserving of remark,, 
that the whole of the after-relation made to Saul, 



SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEOEY. 275 

while thus prostrate before the sorceress, consists 
in a repetition of what had been long previously 
announced concer7iing his rejection hy God^ and of 
the triumph of the Philistines over him^ and which 
was known to the Jewisli people at large. Thus 
the whole case in reference to Saul admits solely 
of being viewed, on the part of the witch, as a 
successful juggle " (vol. cit. pp. 97-100). 

The verse, " By which also he went and preached 
unto the spirits in prison," is thought by many to 
refer to an intermediate state of conscious exist- 
ence, thus showing that the soul has an existence 
separate from the body. In order to understand 
this verse it will be necessary to refer to the 
circumstances under which it was written. Peter 
commences his epistle by addressing the believers 
scattered abroad; exhorting them to withstand 
persecution. His words are : " For it is better, if 
the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well 
doing, than for evil doing. For Christ also hath 
once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that 
he might bring us to God, being put to death in 
the flesh, but quickened by the spirit : by which 
also he went and preached unto the spirits in 
prison ; which some time were disobedient, when 
once the long-suffering of God waited in the days 
of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein 
few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water. 
The like figure whereunto, even baptism, doth also 
now save us . . . by the resurrection of Jesus 
Christ " (1 Pet. ill. 17-21). 



276 BIBLE PEOOF OF THE 

The object of the Apostle evidently is to en- 
courage the believers to hold fast to their faith, 
even though they have to suffer in consequence of 
so doing. For this purpose he cites the example 
of Jesus, who had also suffered unjustly, " being 
put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the 
Spirit," that is, "by the power of God," as St. Paul 
expresses it (2 Cor. xiii. 4), by which power " he 
preached unto the spirits in prison." The spirits 
in prison were evidently persons who were in 
that state of moral darkness which in the succeed- 
ing chapter is represented as one of death ; " for 
the gospel was preached also unto them that are 
dead," that is, " dead in trespasses and sins." 
" To be carnally minded is death." " Thou hast 
a name to live but art dead." " She that liveth in 
pleasure is dead while she liveth." " To you hath 
he given life which were dead in trespasses and 
sins." To such persons Jesus, by preaching the 
Gospel, broke their fetters and released them from 
prison in the sense in which moral delivery is 
spoken of by Isaiah : " The spirit of the Lord God 
is upon me, to proclaim liberty to the captives, 
and the opening of the prison to them that are 
bound." 

Again, Isaiah, in prophesying of Christ, says : 
" Behold my servant, whom I uphold ; mine elect, 
in whom my soul delighteth ; I have put my spirit 
upon him : he shall bring forth judgment to the 
Gentiles." " I the Lord have called thee in right- 
eousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep 



SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY, 277 

thee and give thee for a covenant of the people, 
for a light of the Gentiles ; to open the blind eyes, 
to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and 
them that sit in darkness out of the prison house " 
(Isa. XLii. 1, 6, 7). Looking, therefore, to corre- 
sponding passages as to what was meant by the 
word prison, and who the spirits were to whom 
Jesus preached, this passage ceases to be of diffi- 
cult solution. But had not Isaiah furnished us 
with an illustration, the connection of the Apos- 
tle's argument in the after verses would have 
effected the object ; the intention of the writer 
being to draw a parallel between those persons who 
were in a state of mental darkness in the days of 
Noah and in the apostolic age, which intention 
would have been more obvious had our translators 
introduced a single supplemental word, as they 
have so frequently done in other instances. 

Of the passage. Father into thy hands I commit 
my spirit (Luke xxiii. 46), Bishop Blackburne 
tells us that the translators have here once more 
misled us. " For instead of that solemn recommen- 
dation of our Saviour's soul to God which their 
English words put into his mouth, the plain Greek 
words are only these, Father^ into [or in] thy hands 
I will deposit my spirit ov breath ; importing only 
our Lord's readiness to lay down his life, in conse- 
quence of the command he had received from the 
Father (John x. 18) to lay down his life^ that he 
might take it again^'' 

" The expression," continues Bishop Blackburne, 



278 BIBLE PROOF OF THE 

"of the d3^ing martyr Stephen, Lord Jesus, receive 
my spirit (Acts vii. 59), is much to the same effect 
as if he had said, Lord Jesus, accept ^ the sacrifice of 
my life ivhich I may lay down for thy sake (^Works^ 
vol. II. pp. 204-206). 

Before bringing this volume to a close, it will be 
necessary to refer to a subject that has probably 
occurred to the reader as being inconsistent. If 
man is to be perfected by Evolution, why was it 
necessary that the Son of God should be sent into 
the world to bring man to God ? 

The perfection that is reached by Evolution ap- 
pears not to include a spiritual perfection. Prof. 
Drummond makes this point very clear. 

He observes : " If the doctrine of the Spontane- 
ous Generation of Spiritual life can be met on 
scientific grounds, it will mean the most serious 
enemy Christianity has to deal with, and especially 
within its own borders, at the present day. The 
religion of Jesus has probably always suffered 
more from those who have misunderstood than 
from those who have opposed it. Of the multi- 
tudes who confess Christ at this hour how many 
have clear in their minds the cardinal distinction 
established by its Founder between ' born of the 
flesh ' and ' born of the spirit ' ? 

1 Bishop Blackburne observes in a footnote : "What inclines 
me to give this paraphrase to Stephen's words, is, that the verb 
dekomai, vi'ith its compounds and derivatives, is of frequent 
and familiar occurrence in the Greek Scriptures for that accept- 
ance with which Almighty God honors those sacrifices, offer- 
ings, and gifts which are well pleasing to him." A list of the 
passages are given — See Works, vol. ii. p. 206. 



SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEOEY. 279 

" Let us first place vividly in our imagination 
the picture of the two great kingdoms of Nature, 
the inorganic and the organic, as these now stand 
in the light of the Law of Biogenesis. What es- 
sentially is involved in saying that there is no 
Spontaneous Generation of Life ? It is meant that 
the passage from the mineral world to the plant or 
animal world is hermetically sealed on the min- 
eral side. 

" This inorganic world is staked off from the 
living world by barriers which have never yet been 
crossed from within. No change of substance, no 
modification of environment, no chemistry, no 
electricity, nor any form of energy, nor any evolu- 
tion can endow any single atom of the mineral 
world with the attribute of life. Only by the 
bending down into this dead world of some living 
form can these dead atoms be gifted with the prop- 
erties of vitality, without this preliminary contact 
with Life they remain fixed in the inorganic sphere 
forever." 

" Nature to the modern eye stands broken in 
two. The physical Laws may explain the inor- 
ganic world ; the biological Laws may account for 
the development of the organic. But of the point 
where they meet, of that strange borderland be- 
tween the dead and the living. Science is silent. 
It is as if God had placed every thing in earth and 
heaven in the hands of Nature, but reserved a 
point at the genesis of Life for His direct appear- 
ing. . . . 



280 BIBLE PROOF OF THE 

"Where now in tne Spiritual spheres shall we 
meet a companion phenomenon to this ? What in 
the unseen shall be likened to this deep dividing- 
line, or where in human experience is another bar- 
rier which never can be crossed ? 

" There is such a barrier. In the dim but not 
inadequate vision of the Spiritual World presented 
in the Word of God, the first thing that strikes 
the eye is a great gulf fixed. The passage from 
the Natural World to the Spiritual World is her- 
metically sealed on the natural side. The door 
from the inorganic to the organic is shut, no min- 
eral can open it ; so the door from the natural to 
the spiritual is shut, and no man can open it. 
This world of natural men is staked off from the 
Spiritual World by barriers which have never yet 
been crossed from within. No organic change, no 
modification of environment, no mental energj-, 
no moral effort, no evolution of character, no 
progress of civilization can endow one single 
human soul with the attribute of Spiritual Life. 
The Spiritual World is guarded from the world 
next in order beneath it by a law of Biogenesis 
— except a man he horn again . . . except a man 
he horn of water and of the Spirit^ he cannot enter 
the Kingdom of God. 

" It is not said in this enunciation of the law 
that if the condition be not fulfilled the natural 
man will not enter the Kingdom of God. The 
word is cannot. For the exclusion of the spirit- 
ually inorganic from the Kingdom of the spirit- 



SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 281 

ually organic is not arbitrary. Nor is the natural 
man refused admission on unexplained grounds. 
His admission is a scientific impossibility. Except 
a mineral be born ' from above ' — from the King- 
dom just above it — it cannot enter the Kingdom 
just above it. And except a man be born ' from 
above,' by the same law he cannot enter the King- 
dom just above him. There being no passage 
from one Kingdom to another, whether from inor- 
ganic to organic, or from organic to Spiritual, the 
intervention of Life is a scientific necessity if a 
stone or a plant or an animal or a man is to pass 
from a lower to a higher sphere. 

" The plant stretches down to the dead world 
beneath it, touches its minerals and gases with its 
mystery of Life, and brings them up ennobled and 
transformed to the living sphere. The breath of 
God blowing where it listeth, touches with its 
mystery of Life the dead Souls of men, bears them 
across the bridgeless gulf between the natural and 
the spiritual, the spiritually inorganic and the 
spiritually organic, endows them with its own high 
qualities, and develops within them these new and 
secret faculties, by which those who are born again 
are said to see the Kingdom of G-odT 

" ' He that hath the Son hath Life and he that 
hath not the Son of God hath not Life.' Life, 
that is to say, depends upon contact with Life. It 
cannot spring up of itself. It cannot develop out 
of anything that is not Life. There is no Sponta- 
neous Generation in religion any more than in 



282 BIBLE PROOF OF THE 

Nature. Christ is the source of Life in the Spir- 
itual World ; and he that hath the Son hath Life, 
and he that hath not the Son, whatsoever else he 
may have, hath not Life. Here in short is the 
categorical denial of biogenesis and the establish- 
ment in this high field of the classical formula 
Omne vivum ex vivo — no Life without antecedent 
Life. In this mystical theory of tlie Origin of Life 
the whole of the New Testament writers are agreed. 
And as we have already seen, Christ Himself founds 
Christianity upon Biogenesis stated in its most lit- 
eral form. ' Except a man be born of water and the 
Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. 
That which is born of the flesh is flesh ; and that 
which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Marvel not 
that I say unto you that ye must be born again.' " ^ 

" The attitude of the natural man, again, with 
reference to the Spiritual, is a subject on which 
the New Testament is equally pronounced. Not 
only in his relation to the Spiritual man, but to 
the whole S2:>iritual World, the natural man is re- 
garded as dead. He is as a crystal to an organism. 
The natural world is to the Spiritual as the inor- 
ganic to the organic. ' To be carnally minded is 
Deaths ' Thou hast a name to live but art Dead.' 
'She that liveth in pleasure is Dead while she 
liveth.' ' To you hath He given Life, which were 
Dead in trespasses and sins.' 

" It is clear that a remarkable harmony exists 
here between the Organic World as arranged by 
^ John in. 



SINGLE-SUBSTANCE THEORY. 283 

Science and the Spiritual World as arranged by 
Scripture. We find one great Law guarding the 
thresholds of both worlds, that entrance from a 
lower sphere shall only take place by a direct re- 
generating act, and that emanating from the world 
next in order above." 

" The natural man belongs essentially to this 
present order of things. He is endowed simply 
with a high quality of the natural animal Life. 
But it is Life of so poor a quality that it is not 
Life at all. ' He that hath not the Son hath not 
Life;^ — but he that hath the Son hath Life — a 
new and distinct and supernatural endowment. 
He is not of this world. He is of the timeless 
state, of Eternity. ' It doth not yet appear what he 
shall he.'' 

" Why a virtuous man should not simply grow 
better and better until in his own right he enter 
the Kingdom of God is what thousands honestly 
and sincerely fail to understand. Now Philosophy 
cannot help us here. Her arguments are if any- 
thing against us. But Science answers to the 
appeal at once. If it be simply pointed out that 
this is the same absurdity as to ask why a stone 
should not grow more and more living till it enters 
the Organic World, the point is clear in an in- 
stant." 

"It is an old-fashioned theology which divides 
the world in this way — which speaks of men 
as Living and Dead, Lost and Saved — a stern 
theology all but fallen into disuse. This differ- 



284 BIBLE PEOOF, ETC. 

ence between the Living and the Dead in souls is 
so unproved by casual observation, so impalpable 
in itself, so startling as a doctrine, that schools of 
culture have ridiculed or denied the grim distinc- 
tion. Nevertheless the grim distinction must be 
retained. It is a scientific distinction. 'He that 
hath not the Son hath not Life ' (JSfatural Law 
in the Spiritual Worlds pp. 68-83, L. 1893). 



APPENDIX. 



As it will probably be some time before the 
mind-cure will be universally resorted to for the 
cure of disease, it will not be amiss to give in this 
connection the discovery of a remedy for nervous 
prostration and melancholia, which has thus far 
proved to be an unfailing cure for those diseases. 
The remedy is as follows : — 

Three drams of pulverized guaiacum, three 
drams of colombo-root, one pint of sherry wine, 
and two ounces of sugar. The dose is from one 
to two tablespoonfuls, three times a day, just before 
eating. 

It should be prepared several days before it is 
taken. It should be frequently shaken, but should 
be allowed to settle before it is used, as the clear 
liquid only is to be taken. 

Great care should be exercised in purchasing 
the guaiacum, as it is necessary that it should be 
pulverized some time before it is used, in order 
285 



286 APPENDIX. 

that it may be perfectly dry ; and when pulverized 
it is apt to lose its strength. If it is not perfectly 
dry, it becomes a lump of gum wheii added to the 
wine. When strong, it leaves a burning sensation 
in the mouth. 

This remedy was discovered by being taken as a 
tonic in a case of nervous prostration and mental 
depression. The patient had been prostrated by a 
severe shock to the nervous system, and for five 
months had grown steadily worse in spite of medi- 
cal treatment. After the medicine had been taken 
a few times, the depression of spirits entirely dis- 
appeared, and there was a decided improvement in 
all of the symptoms. In a few weeks the patient 
was restored to perfect health. 

Another cure effected by this remedy was a case 
of melancholia of a year's standing, that had been 
pronounced hopeless. The cure in this case, in- 
credible as it may appear, was complete in five 
days. From a state of the deepest melancholy, the 
patient was restored to perfect cheerfulness, and 
has never suffered from a relapse. It is eight 
years since this occurred. 

Another case cured was that of an elderly 
woman whose mind was becoming permanently 
weakened. In this case mental depression had 
been induced by great anxiety, which was caused 
by the dangerous illness of an only daughter, who 
was in a distant part of the country. 

A fourth case that was cured was an apparently 



APPEXDIX. 287 

hopeless case of melancholia of more than a year's 
standing. The patient was a man over sixty years 
of age. His father and two of his brothers had 
suffered from the same disease. His mother, a 
brother, and a sister died insane. The cure in 
this case was not as rapid as in the other cases 
mentioned. 

A fifth case was a case of paralysis in a man 
eighty-four years of age. The mind only of the 
patient appeared to be affected. There was in- 
ability to connect ideas, and also inability to re- 
member the words by which to express them. 
The cure in this case was very rapid. 

In all of the foregoing cases there were decided 
indications of poor circulation. In one case a 
patient was told by her physician that there was 
an insufficient supply of nourishment for the brain, 
on account of the poor circulation of her blood. 

Prof. Bain observes : " Deficiency in the circula- 
tion is accompanied with feeble manifestations of 
mind." " General depletion lowers all the func- 
tions generally, mind included. On the other 
hand, when the cerebral circulation is quickened, 
the feelings are roused, the thoughts are more 
rapid, the volitions more vehement" (^Mind and 
Body^ p. 15). 

It was accidentally discovered that the efficacy 
of this remedy is due to the guaiacum it contains. 

Guaiacum is a resin of the Lignum Vitoe tree, 
which was so highly prized in the sixteenth cen- 



288 APPENDIX. 

tury that four ducats were often given for a piece 
of the wood. During the sixteenth and seven- 
teenth centuries guaiacum was the great remedy 
for poor circulation of the blood, gout, chronic 
rheumatism, and chronic skin-diseases. "It pos- 
sesses the property of stimulating the system gen- 
erally, causing vascular action, augmented heat of 
the body, and promotes the secretions of the skin 
and lungs " (^National Cyclopcedia), 



p- 



.W.'TL 



